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THE TRESPASSER

BY

GILBERT PARKER

4 4

AUTHOR OF

THE TRANSLATION OF A SAVAGE, PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE
MRS. FALCHION, THE CHIEF FACTOR, ETC.

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

1893

Copyright, 1893,

By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

Electrotyped and Printed
at the Appleton Press, U. S. A.

TO

DOUGLAS ROBINSON, \ Esq. ,

AND

FRANK A. HILTON, \ Esq.

My dear Douglas and Frank:

I feel sure that this dedication will give you as
much pleasure as it does me. It will at least be evi-
dence that I do not forget good days in your com-
pany here and there in the world. I take pleasure
in linking your names ; for you , who have never met ,
meet thus in the porch of a little house that I have
built.

You , my dear Douglas, will find herein scenes,
times, and things familiar to you ; and you, my dear
Frank, reflections of hours when ice camped by an
idle shore, or drew about the fire of winter nights,
and told tales worth more than this, for they were
of the future , and it is of the past.

Always sincerely yours ,

GILBERT

/

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

I.— One in Search of a Kingdom . . . .11

II. — In which he claims his own .... 20

III. — He tells the Story of his Life ... 33

IV. — An Hour with his Father’s Past ... 61

Y. — Wherein he finds his Enemy .... 75

VI. — Which tells of Strange Encounters . . 89

VII. — Wherein the Seal of his Heritage is set . 102

VIII. — He answers an Awkward Question . . 121

IX. — He finds New Sponsors 135

X. — He comes to “ the Waking of the Fire ” . 148

XI. — He makes a Gallant Conquest . . . 160

XII. — He stands between Two Worlds . . .173

XIII. — He journeys afar 180

XIV. — In which the Past is repeated . . . 192

XV. — Wherein is seen the Old Adam and the

Garden ........ 214

XVI. — Wherein Loye knows no Law save the Man’s

Will 225

XVII.— The Man and the Woman face the Intoler-
able . 241

XVIII.— “ Return, 0 Shulamite t ” 261

THE TRESPASSER.

* CHAPTER I.

ONE IN SEARCH OF A KINGDOM.

Why Gaston Bel ward left the wholesome North to
journey afar, Jacques Brillon asked often in the brawl-
ing streets of New York, and oftener in the fog of
London as they made ready to ride to Kidley Court.
There was a railway station two miles from the Court,
but Belward had had enough of railways. He had
brought his own horse Saracen, and Jacques’ broncho
also, at foolish expense, across the sea, and at a hotel
near Easton Station master and man mounted and set
forth, having seen their worldly goods bestowed by
staring porters, to go on by rail.

In murky London they attracted little notice ; but
when their hired guide left them at the outskirts, and
they got away upon the highway towards the Court,
cottagers stood gaping. For, outside the town there
was no fog, and the fresh autumn air drew the people
abroad.

“ What is it makes ’em stare, Jacques ? ” said Bel-
ward, with a humorous sidelong glance.

2

THE TRESPASSER.

Jacques looked seriously at the bright pommel of
his master’s saddle and the shining stirrups and spurs,
dug a heel into the tender skin of his broncho, and
replied :

“ Too much silver all at once.”

He tossed his curling black hair, showing up the
gold rings in his ears, and flicked the red-and-gold
tassels of his boots.

“ You think that’s it, eh ? ” rejoined Bel ward, as
he tossed a shilling to a beggar.

“ Maybe, too, your great Saracen to this tot of a
broncho, and the grand homme to little Jacques
Brillon ! ”

Jacques was tired and testy.

The other laid his whip softly on the half-breed’s
shoulder.

“ See, my peacock : none of that. You’re a spank-
ing good servant, but you’re in a country where it’s
knuckle down man to master ; and what they do here
you’ve got to do, or quit — go back to your peasoup
and caribou ! That’s as true as God’s in heaven, little
Brillon. We’re not on the buffalo trail now. You
understand ? ”

Jacques nodded.

“ Hadn’t you better say it ? ”

The warning voice drew up the half-breed’s face
swiftly, and he replied :

“ I am to do what you please.”

ONE IN SEARCH OP A KINGDOM. 3

“Exactly. You’ve been with me six years — ever
since I turned Bear Eye’s moccasins to the sun ; and
for that you swore you’d never leave me. Did it on a
string of holy beads, didn’t you, Frenchman?”

“ I do it again.”

He drew out a rosary, and disregarding Bel ward’s
outstretched hand, said :

“ By the Mother of God, I will never leave you ! ”

There was a kind of wondering triumph in Bel-
ward’s eyes, though he had at first shrunk from
Jacques’ action, and a puzzling smile came.

“ Wherever I go, or whatever I do ? ”

“ Whatever you do, or wherever you go.”

He put the rosary to his lips, and made the sign of
the cross.

His master looked at him curiously, intently.
Here was a vain, naturally indolent half-breed, whose
life had made for selfishness and independence, giving
his neck willingly to a man’s heel, serving with blind
reverence, under a voluntary vow.

“ Well, it’s like this, Jacques,” Bel ward said pres-
ently, “ I want you, and I’m not going to say that
you’ll have a better time than you did in the North,
or on the Slope ; but if you’d rather be with me than
not, you’ll find that I’ll interest you. There’s a bond
between us, anyway. You’re half French, and I’m
one-fourth French, and more. You’re half Indian,
and I’m one-fourth Indian — no more. That’s enough !

4

THE TRESPASSER.

So far, I haven’t much advantage. But I’m one-lialf
English — King’s English, for there’s been an offshoot
of royalty in our family somewhere, and there’s the
royal difference. That’s where I get my brains — and
manners.”

“Where did you get the other ?” asked Jacques,
shyly, almost furtively.

“Money?”

“ Not money — the other ! ”

Belward spurred, and his horse sprang away vi-
ciously. A laugh came back on Jacques, who followed
as hard as he could, and it gave him a feeling of awe.
They were apart for a long time, then came together
again, and rode for miles without a word. At last
Belward, glancing at a sign-post before an inn-door,
exclaimed at the legend — “ The Whisk o’ Barley,” —
and drew rein. He regarded the place curiously for a
minute. The landlord came out. Belward had some
beer brought. A half-dozen rustics stood gaping, not
far away. He touched his horse with a heel. Saracen
sprang towards them, and they fell back alarmed.
Belward now drank his beer quietly, and asked ques-
tion after question of the landlord, sometimes waiting
f for an answer, sometimes not — a kind of cross-exami-
nation. Presently he dismounted.

As he stood questioning, chiefly about Bidley
Court and its people, a coach showed on the hill,
and came dashing dowTn and past. He lifted his eyes

ONE IN SEARCH OF A KINGDOM.

5

idly, though never before had he seen such a coach as
swings away from Northumberland Avenue of a morn- .
ing. He was not idle, however ; hut he had not come
to England to show surprise at anything. As the
coach passed his face lifted above the arm on the neck
of the horse, keen, dark, strange. A man on the box-
seat, attracted at first by the uncommon horses and
their trappings, caught Bel ward’s eyes. Not he alone,
but Belward started then. Some vague intelligence
moved the minds of both, and their attention was
fixed till the coach rounded a corner and was gone.

The landlord was at Belward’s elbow.

“ The gentleman on the box-seat he from Ridley
Court. That’s Maister Ian Belward, sir.”

Gaston Belward’s eyes half closed, and a sombre
look came, giving his face a handsome malice. He
wound his fingers in his horse’s mane, and put a foot
in the stirrup.

“ Who is ‘ Maister Ian ’ ? ”

“Maister Ian be Sir William’s eldest, sir. On’y
one that’s left, sir. On’y three to start wi’ : and one
be killed i’ battle, and one had trouble wi’ his faither
and Maister Ian ; and he went away and never was
heard on again, sir. That’s the end on him,”

“ Oh, that’s the end on him , eh, landlord ? And
how long ago was that ? ”

“ Becky, lass,” called the landlord within the door,
“ wheniver was it Maister Robert turned his back on

6

THE TRESPASSER.

the Court — iver so while ago? Eh, a fine lad that
Maister Robert as iver I see ! ”

Eat laborious Becky hobbled out, holding an apple
and a knife. She blinked at her husband, and then at
the strangers.

“ What be askin’ o’ the Court ? ” she said.

Her husband repeated the question.

She gathered her apron to her eyes with an unctu-
ous sob :

“ Doan’t a’ know when Maister Robert went ! He
comes i’ the house ’ere and says : 4 Becky, gie us a
taste o’ the red- top — and where ’s Jock ? ’ He was al-
ways thinkin’ a deal o’ my son Jock. 4 Jock be gone,’
I says, 4 and I knows nowt o’ his cornin’ back,’ — mean-
in’, I was, that day. 4 Good for Jock ! ’ says he, 4 and
I’m goin’ too, Becky, and I knows nowt o’ my cornin’
back.’ ‘Where be goin’, Maister Robert?’ I says.
4 To hell, Becky,’ says he, and he laughs. 4 From hell
to hell. I’m sick to my teeth o’ one, I’ll try t’other,-’
— a way like that speaks he.”

Belward was impatient, and to hurry the story he
made as if to start on. Becky, seeing, hastened.

44 Dear a’ dear ! The red-top were afore him, and
I tryin’ to make what be come to him. He throws
arm ’round me, smacks me on the cheek, and says he :
4 Tell Jock to keep the mare, Becky.’ Then he flings
away, and never more comes back to the Court. And
that day one year my Jock smacks me on the cheek,

ONE IN SEARCH OF A KINGDOM. 7

and gets on tlie mare ; and when I ask, ‘ Where be go-
in’ ? ’ he says : ‘ For a hunt i’ hell wi’ Maister Robert,
mither.’ And from that day come back he never did,
nor any word. There was trouble wi’ the lad — wi’
him and Maister Robert at the Court; but I never
knowed nowt o’ the truth. And it’s seven-and-twen-
ty years since Maister Robert went.”

Gaston leaned over his horse’s neck, and thrust a
piece of silver into the woman’s hands.

“ Take that, Becky Lawson, and mop your eyes no
more.”

She gaped.

“ How dost know my name was Becky Lawson ? I
havena been ca’d so these three-and-twenty years — not
since a’ married good man here, and put Jock’s faith-
er in ’s grave yander.”

“ The devil told me,” he answered, with a strange
laugh, and, spurring, they were quickly out of sight.

They rode for a couple of miles without speaking.
Jacques knew his master, and did not break the si-
lence. Presently they came over a hill, and down
upon a little bridge. Belward drew rein, and looked
up the valley. About two miles beyond the roofs and
turrets of the Court showed above the trees. A whim-
sical smile came to his lips.

“ Brillon,” he said, “ I’m in sight of home.”

The half-breed cocked his head. It was the first
time that Belward had called him “ Brillon ” — he had

8

THE TRESPASSER.

ever been “Jacques.” This was to be a part of the
new life. They were not now hunting elk, riding to
“ wipe out ” a camp of Indians or navvies, dining the
owner of a ranche or a deputation from a prairie con-
stituency in search of a member, nor yet with a sena-
tor at Washington, who served tea with canvas-back
duck and tooth-picks with dessert. Once before had
Jacques seen this new manner — when Bel ward visited
Parliament House at Ottawa, and was presented to
some notable English people, visitors to Canada. It
had come to these notable folk that Mr. Gaston Bel-
ward had relations at Ridley Court, and that of itself
was enough to command courtesy. But presently,
they who would be gracious for the family’s sake,
were gracious for the man’s. He had that which
compelled interest — a suggestive, personal, distin-
guished air. Jacques knew his master better than
anyone else knew him; and yet he knew little, for
Belward was of those who seem to give much confi-
dence, and yet give little — never more than he wished.

“Yes, monsieur, in sight of home,” Jacques re-
plied, with a dry cadence.

“ Say 1 sir,’ not 4 monsieur,’ Brillon ; and from the
time we enter the Court yonder, look every day and
every hour as you did when the judge asked you who
killed Tom Daly.”

Jacques winced, but nodded his head.

Belward continued :

ONE IN SEARCH OF A KINGDOM.

9

“ What you hear me tell is what you can speak
of ; otherwise you are blind and dumb. You under-
stand ? ”

Jacques’ face was sombre, but he said quickly :

“ Yes — sir.”

He straightened himself on his horse, as if to put
himself into discipline at once — as lead to the back of
a racer.

Belward read the look. He drew his horse close
up. Then he ran an arm over the other’s shoulder.

“ See here, Jacques. This is a game that’s got to
be played up to the hilt. A cat has nine lives, and
most men have two. We have. Now listen. You
never knew me mess things, did you? Well, I play
for keeps in this; no monkeying. I’ve had the life
of IJr of the Chaldees ; now for Babylon. I’ve lodged
with the barbarian ; here are the roofs of ivory. I’ve
had my day with my mother’s people; voila! for my
father’s. You heard what Becky Lawson said. My
father was sick of it at twenty-five, and got out. We’ll
see what my father’s son will do. . . . I’m going to
say my say to you, and have done with it. As like as
not there isn’t another man that I’d have brought
with me. You’re all right. But I’m not going to
rub noses. I stick when I do stick, but I know what’s
got to be done here ; and I’ve told you. You’ll not
have the fun out of it that I will, but you won’t have
the worry. Now, we start fresh. I’m to be obeyed ;

10

THE TRESPASSER.

I’m Napoleon. I’ve got a devil, yet it needn’t hurt
yon, and it won’t. But if I make enemies here — and
I’m sure to — let them look out. Give me your hand,
Jacques; and don’t you forget that there are two
Gaston Bel wards, and the one you have hunted and
lived with is the one you want to remember when you
get raw with the new one. For you’ll hear no more
slang like this from me, and you’ll have to get used to
lots of things.”

Without waiting reply, Bel ward urged on his
horse, and at last paused on the top of a hill, and
waited for Jacques. It was now dusk, and the land-
scape showed soft, sleepy, and warm.

“It’s all of a piece,” Belward said to himself,
glancing from the trim hedges, the small, perfectly-
tilled fields and the smooth roads, to Ridley Court
itself, where many lights were burning and gates
opening and shutting. There was some affair on at
the Court, and he smiled to think of his own appear-
ance among the guests.

“It’s a pity I haven’t clothes with me, Brillon;
they have a show going there.”

He had dropped again into the new form of master
and man. His voice was cadenced, gentlemanly.

Jacques pointed to his own saddle-bag.

“ No, no, they are not the things needed. I want
the evening-dress which cost that cool hundred dollars
in New York.”

ONE IN SEARCH OP A KINGDOM.

11

Still Jacques was silent. He did not know
whether, in his new position, he was expected to sug-
gest. Belward understood, and it pleased him.

“ If we had lost the track of a buck moose, or were
nosing a cache of furs, you’d find a way, Brillon.”

“ Voila ! ” said J acques ; “ then, why not wear the
buckskin vest, the red-silk sash, and the boots like
these?” — tapping his own patent-leathers. “You
look a grand seigneur so.”

“ But I am here to look an English gentleman, not
a grand seigneur, nor a company’s trader on a break.
— Never mind, the thing will wait till we stand in my
ancestral halls,” he added, with a dry laugh.

They neared the Court. The village church was
close by the Court- wall. It drew Belward’s attention.
One by one lights were springing up in it. It was a
Friday evening, and the choir were come to practice.
They saw buxom village girls stroll in, followed by the
organist, one or two young men and a handful of
boys. Presently the horsemen were seen, and a star-
ing group gathered at the church-door. An idea came
to Belward.

“ Kings used to make pilgrimages before they took
their crowns, why shouldn’t I ? ” he said half -jestingly.

Most men placed similarly would have been so en-
gaged with the main event that they had never thought
of this other. But Belward was not excited. He was
moving deliberately, prepared for every situation. He

12

THE TRESPASSER.

had a great game in hand, and he had no fear of his
ability to play it. He suddenly stopped his horse, and
threw the bridle to Jacques, saying :

“ I’ll be back directly, Brillon.”

He entered the churchyard, and passed to the door.
As he came the group under the crumbling arch fell
back, and at the call of the organist went to the chan-
cel. Belward came slowly up the aisle, and paused
about the middle. Something in the scene gave him
a new sensation. The church was old, dilapidated;
but the timbered roof, the Norman and Early English
arches incongruously side by side, with patches of an-
cient distemper and paintings, and, more than all, the
marble figures on the tombs, with hands folded so
foolishly, — yet impressively too, — brought him up with
a quick throb of the heart. It was his first real con-
tact with England ; for he had not seen London, save
at Euston Station and in the north-west district. But
here he was in touch with his heritage. He rested
his hand upon a tomb beside him, and looked around
slowly.

The choir began the psalm for the following Sun-
day. At first he did not listen ; but presently the
organist was heard alone, and then the choir afterwards
sang:

“ Woe is me, that I am constrained to dwell with Mesech :

And to have my habitation among the tents of Kedar.”

ONE IN SEARCH OF A KINGDOM.

13

Simple, dusty, ancient church, thick with effigies and
tombs; with inscriptions upon pillars to virgins de-
parted this life ; and tablets telling of gentlemen
gone from great parochial virtues : it wakened in Bel-
wrard’s brain a fresh conception of the life he was
about to live — he did not doubt that he would live it. /
He would not think of himself as inacceptable to old
Sir William Bel ward. lie glanced to the tomb under
his hand. There was enough daylight yet to see the
inscription on the marble. Besides, a single candle
was burning just over hie head. He stooped and
read :

JSarrtb to % gEhmoro

OF

SIR GASTON ROBERT BELWARD. BART.,

OF RIDLEY COURT, IN THIS PARISH OF GASTONBURY,

WHO,

AT THE AGE OF ONE AND FIFTY YEARS,

AFTER A LIFE OF DISTINGUISHED SERVICE FOR HIS KING

AND COUNTRY,

AND GRAVE AND CONSTANT CARE OF THOSE EXALTED WORKS
WHICH BECOME A GENTLEMAN OF ENGLAND;

MOST NOTABLE FOR HIS LOVE OF ARTS AND LETTERS;

SENSIBLE IN ALL GRACES AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS;
GIFTED WITH SINGULAR VIRTUES AND INTELLECTS ;

AND

DELIGHTING AS MUCH IN THE JOYS OF PEACE
AS IN THE HEAVY DUTIES OF WAR:

WAS SLAIN BY THE SIDE OF HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS,
THE BELOVED AND ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE RUPERT,

AT THE BATTLE OF NASEBY,

IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD MDCXLV.

“ A Sojourner as all my Fathers were."

14

THE TRESPASSER.

“ 4 Gaston Robert Belward ’ ! ”

He read the name over and over, his fingers trac-
ing the letters.

His first glance at the recumbent figure had been
hasty. How, however, he leaned over and examined
it. It lay, hands folded, in the dress of Prince Ru-
pert’s cavaliers, a sword at side, and great spurs laid
beside the heels.

“ ‘ Gaston Robert Belward ’ ! ”

As this other Gaston Robert Belward looked at
the image of his dead ancestor, a wild thought came :
Had he himself not fought with Prince Rupert? Was
he not looking at himself in stone? Was he not here
to show England how a knight of Charles’ time would
look upon the life of the Victorian age? Would not
this still cold Gaston be as strange at Ridley Court as
himself fresh from tightening a cinch on the belly of
a broncho? Would he not ride from where he had
been sojourning as much a stranger in his England
as himself ?

For a moment the idea possessed him. He ivas
Sir Gaston Robert Belward , Baronet. He remem-
bered now how, at Prince Rupert’s side, he had sped
on after Ireton’s horse, cutting down Roundheads as
he passed, on and on, mad with conquest, yet wonder-
ing that Rupert kept so long in pursuit while Charles
was in danger with Cromwell : how, as the word came
to wheel back, a shot tore away the pommel of his

ONE IN SEARCH OF A KINGDOM.

15

saddle ; then another, and another, and with a sharp
twinge in his neck he fell from his horse. He re-
membered how he raised himself on his arm and
shouted “ God save the King ! ” How he loosed his
scarf and staunched the blood at his neck, then fell
back into a whirring silence, from which he was
roused by feeling himself in strong arms, and hearing
a voice say, “ Courage, Gaston.” Then came the dis-
tant, very distant, thud of hoofs, and he fell asleep ;
and memory was done !

He stood for a moment oblivious to everything :
the evening bird fluttering among the rafters, the
song of the nightingale without, the sighing wind in
the tower entry, the rustics in the doorway, the group
in the choir.

Presently he became conscious of the words sung :

“ A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone ;

Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.

“ Time, like an ever-rolling stream,

Bears all its sons away ;

They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.”

He was himself again in an instant. He had been
in a kind of dream. It seemed a long time since he
had entered the church — in reality but a few mo-
ments. He caught his moustache in his fingers, and
turned on his heel with a musing smile. His spurs

16

THE TRESPASSER.

clinked as he went down the aisle ; and, involuntarily,
he tapped a boot-leg with his riding- whip. The sing-
ing ceased. His spurs made the only sound. The
rustics at the door fell back before him. He had to
go up three steps to reach the threshold. As he stood
on the top one he paused and turned round.

So, this was home : this church more so even than
the Court hard by. Here his ancestors — for how long
he did not know, probably since the time of Edward
III. — idled time away in the dust ; here Gaston Bel-
ward had been sleeping in effigy since Naseby Field.
A romantic light came into his face. Again, why
not ? Even in the Hudson’s Bay country and in the
Rocky Mountains, he had been called, “ Tivi : The
Man of the Other.” He had been counted the great-
est of Medicine Men — one of the 'Race : the people of
the Pole, who lived in a pleasant land, gifted as none
others of the race of men. Not an hour before
Jacques had asked him where he got “the other.”
No man can live in the North for any time without
getting the strain of its mystery and romance in him.
Gaston waved his hand to the tomb, and said half-
believingly :

“ Gaston Robert Belward, come again to your
kingdom ! ”

He turned to go out, and faced the rector of the
parish,— a bent, benign-looking man, — who gazed at
him astonished. He had heard the strange speech.

ONE IN SEARCH OF A KINGDOM. 17

His grave eyes rested on tlie stalwart stranger with
courteous inquiry. Gaston knew who it was. Over
his left brow there was a scar. He had heard of that
scar before. When the venerable Archdeacon Varcoe
was tutor to Ian and Eobert Belward, Ian, in a fit of
anger, had thrown a stick at his brother. It had
struck the clergyman, leaving a scar.

Gaston now raised his hat. As he passed, the
rector looked after him, puzzled; the words he had
heard addressed to the effigy returning. His eyes
followed the young man to the gate, and presently,
with a quick lifting of the shoulders, he said :

“ Eobert Belward ! ” Then added : “ Impossible !
But he is a Belward ! ”

He saw Gaston mount, then entered and went
slowly up the aisle. He paused beside the tomb of
that other Belward. His wrinkled hand rested on it.

“ That is it,” he said at last. “ He is like the
picture of this Sir Gaston. Strange ! ”

He sighed, and unconsciously touched the scar on
his brow. His dealings with the Belwards had not
been all joy. Begun with youthful pride and affec-
tionate interest, they had gone on into vexation, sor-
row, failure, and shame. While Gaston was riding
into his kingdom, Lionel Henry Varcoe was thinking
how poor his life had been where he had meant it
to be useful.

As he stood musing and listening to the music of

18

THE TRESPASSER.

the choir, a girl came softly up the aisle, and touched
him on the arm.

“ Grandfather, dear,” she said, “ aren’t you going
to the Court ? You have not been there to dine for
so long ! ”

He fondled the hand on his arm.

“ My dearest, they have not asked me for a long
time.”

“ But why not to-night ? I have laid out every-
thing nicely for you : your new gaiters, and your
D. C. L. coat with the pretty buttons and cord.”

“ How can I leave you, my dear ? And they do
not ask you ! ”

The voice tried for playfulness, but the eyes had a
disturbed look.

“ Me ? Oh ! they never ask me to dinner — you
know that. Tea and formal visits are enough for
Lady Bel ward, and almost too much for me. There
is yet time to dress. Oh ! say you will go. I want
you to be friendly with them.”

The old man shook his head.

“ I do not care to leave you, my dearest.”

“ Foolish old fatherkins ! Who would carry me
off ? — ‘ Nobody, no, not I, nobody cares for me.’ ”

Suddenly a new look shot up in her face.

“Did you see that singular handsome man who
came from the church — like someone out of an old
painting? Not that his dress was so strange; but

ONE IN SEARCH OF A KINGDOM.

19

there was something in his face — something that you
would expect to find in — in a Garibaldi. Silly, am I
not ? Did you see him ? ”

He looked at her gravely.

“ My dear,” he said at last, “ I think I will go
after all, though I shall be a little late.”

“ A sensible grandfather ! Come quickly, dear.”

He paused again.

“ But I fear I sent a note declining.”

“ Ah, no, you did not. It has been lying on your
table for two days.”

“ Dear me — dear me ! I am getting very old ! ”

They passed out of the church. Presently, as they
hurried to the rectory near by, the girl said :

“ But you haven’t answered. Did you see the
stranger? Do you know who he is? ”

The rector turned, and pointed to the gate of Rid-
ley Court. Gaston and Brillon were just entering.

“ Alice, dear,” he said, in a vague, half-troubled
way, “ the man is a Belward, I think.”

“ Why, of course ! ” the girl replied with a flash of
excitement. “ But so dark, strange, and foreign-look-
ing ! What Belward is he ? ”

“ I do not know yet, my dear.”

“ I shall be up when you come back. But mind,
don’t leave just after dinner. Stay and talk; you
must tell me everything that’s said and done — and
about the stranger ! ”

CHAPTER II.

IN WHICH HE CLAIMS HIS OWN.

Meanwhile, without a word, Gaston had mounted,
ridden to the castle, and passed through the open gates
into the courtyard. Inside he paused. In the main
building many lights were burning. There came a
rattle of wheels behind him, and he shifted to let a
carriage pass. Through the window of the brougham
he could see the shimmer of satin, lace, and soft white
fur, and he had an instant’s glance of a pretty face.

The carriage drew up to the steps, and presently
three ladies and a brusque gentleman passed into the
hall-way, admitted by powdered footmen. The in-
cident had a manner, an air, which struck Gaston, he
knew not why. Perhaps it was the easy finesse of
ceremonial. He- looked at Brillon. He had seen him
sit arms folded like that, looking from the top of a
bluff down on an Indian village or a herd of buffa-
loes. There was wonder, but no shyness or agitation,
on his face ; rather the naive, naked look of a child.
Bel ward laughed.

“ Come, Brillon ; we are at home.”

IN WHICH HE CLAIMS HIS OWN.

21

He rode up to the steps, Jacques following. A
footman appeared and stared. Gaston looked down
on him neutrally, and dismounted. Jacques did the
same. The footman still stared. Another appeared
behind. Gaston eyed the puzzled servant calmly.

“ Why don’t you call a groom ? ” he presently said.
There was a cold gleam in his eye.

The footman shrank.

“ Oh, yessir, yessir,” he said confusedly, and sig-
nalled.

The other footman came down, and made as if to
take the bridle. Gaston waved him back. None too
soon,, for the horse lunged at him.

“ A rub down, a pint of beer, and water and feed
in an hour, and I’ll come to see him myself late to-
night.”

Jacques had loosened the saddle-bags and taken
them off. Gaston spoke to the horse, patted his
neck, and gave him to the groom. Then he went
up the steps, followed by Jacques. He turned at
the door to see the groom leading both horses off,
eyeing Saracen suspiciously. He laughed noise-
lessly.

“ Saracen ’ll teach him things,” he said. “ I might
warn him, but it’s best for the horses to make their
own impressions.”

“ What name, sir ? ” said a footman.

“ You are ? ”

22

THE TRESPASSER.

“ Falby, sir.”

“ Falby, look after my man Brillon here, and take
me to Sir William.”

“ What name, sir ? ”

Gaston, as if with sudden thought, stepped into
the light of the candles, and said in a low voice :

“ Falby, don’t you know me ? ”

The footman turned a little pale, as his eyes, in
spite of themselves, clung to Gaston’s. A kind of
fright came, and then they steadied.

“ Oh yes, sir,” he said mechanically.

“ Where have you seen me ? ”

“ In the picture on the wall, sir.”

“ Whose picture, Falby ? ”

“ Sir Gaston Bel ward, sir.”

A smile lurked at the corners of Gaston’s mouth.

“ Gaston Bel ward. Very well, then you know
what to say to Sir William. Show me into the
library.”

“ Or the justices’ room, sir?”

“ The justices’ room will do.”

Gaston wondered what the justices’ room was.
A moment after he stood in it, and the dazed Falby
had gone, trying vainly to reconcile the picture on
the wall, which, now that he could think, he knew
was very old, with this strange man who had sent a
curious cold shiver through him. But, anyhow, he
was a Belward, that was certain : voice, face, manner

IN WHICH HE CLAIMS HIS OWN.

23

showed it. But with something like no Belward he
had ever seen.

Left to himself, Gaston looked round on a large,
severe room. Its use dawned on him. This was part
of the life : Sir William was a Justice of the Peace.
But why had he been brought here ? Why not to the
library, as himself had suggested? There would be
some awkward hours for Falby in the future. Gaston
had as winning a smile, as sweet a manner, as anyone
in the world, so long as a straight game was on ; but
to cross his will with the other ! — he had been too
long a power in that wild country where his father
had also been a power ! He did not quite know how
long he waited, for he was busy with plans as to his
career at Ridley Court. He was roused at last by
Falby’s entrance. A keen, cold look shot from under
his straight brows.

“ Well?” he said.

“Will you step into the library, sir? Sir William
will see you there.”

Falby tried to avoid his look, but his eyes were
compelled, and Gaston said :

“ Falby, you will always hate to enter this
room.”

Falby was agitated.

“ I hope not, sir.”

“ But you will, Falby, unless ”

“ Yessir?”

24

THE TRESPASSER.

“Unless you are both the serpent and the dove
Falby.”

“ Yessir.”

As they entered the hall, Brillon with the saddle-
bags was being taken in charge, and Gaston saw what
a strange figure he looked beside the other servants
and in these fine surroundings. He could not think
that himself was so bizarre. Nor was he. But he
looked unusual; as one of high civilisation might,
through long absence in primitive countries, return in
uncommon clothing, and with a manner of distin-
guished strangeness : the barbaric to protect the re-
fined, as one has seen a bush of firs set to shelter a
wheat-field from a sea-wind, or a windmill water cun-
ningly-begotten flowers.

As he went through the hall other visitors were
entering. They passed him, making for the staircase.
Ladies with the grand air looked at him curiously,
and two girls glanced shyly from the jingling spurs
and tasselled boots to his rare face.

One of the ladies suddenly gave a little gasping
cry, and catching the arm of her companion, said :

“ Heine ! how like Robert Belward ! Who — who
is he?”

The other coolly put up her pince-nez. She
caught Gaston’s profile and the turn of his shoulder.

“ Yes, like, Sophie ; but Robert never had such a
back, nor anything like the face.”

IN WHICH HE CLAIMS HIS OWN.

25

She spoke with no attempt to modulate her voice,
and it carried distinctly to Gaston. He turned and
glanced at them.

“ He’s a Belward, certainly, but like what one I
don’t know; and terribly eccentric, my dear! Did
you see the boots and the sash? Why, bless me, if
you are not shaking ! Don’t be silly — shivering at the
thought of Robert Belward after all these years ! ”

So saying, Mrs. Warren Gasgoyne tapped Lady
Dargan on the arm, and then turned sharply to see if
her daughters had been listening. She saw that they
had ; and though herself and not her sister was to
blame, she said :

“ Sophie, you are very indiscreet ! If you had
daughters of your own, you would probably be more
careful — though Heaven only knows, for you were
always difficult ! ”

With this they vanished up the staircase, Mrs.
Gasgoyne’s daughters, Delia and Agatha, smiling at
each other and whispering of Gaston.

Meanwhile the seeker after a kingdom was shown
into Sir William Belward’s study. No one was there.
He walked to the mantelpiece, and, leaning his arm
on it, looked round. Directly in front of him on the
wall was the picture of a lady in middle-life, sitting
in an arbour. A crutch lay against one arm of her
chair, and her left hand leaned on an ebony silver-
topped cane. There was something painful, haunt-

26

TIIE TRESPASSER.

ing, in the face — a weirdness in the whole picture.
The face was looking into the sunlight, but the effect
was rather of moonlight — distant, mournful. He was
fascinated ; why, he could not tell. Art to him was
an unknown book, but he had the instinct, and he
was quick to feel. This picture struck him as being
out of harmony with everything else in the room.
Yet it had a strange compelling charm.

Presently he started forward with an exclamation.
How he understood the vague, eerie influence. Look-
ing out from behind the foliage was a face, so dim
that one moment it seemed not to be there, and then
suddenly to flash in — as a picture from Beyond sails,
lightning-like, across the filmy eyes of the dying. It
was the face of a youth, elf-like, unreal, yet he saw
his father’s features in it.

He rubbed his e}Tes and looked again. It seemed
very dim. Indeed, so delicately, vaguely, had the
work been done that only eyes like Gaston’s, trained
to observe, with the sight of a hawk and a sense of the
mysterious, could have seen so quickly or so distinctly.
He drew slowly back to the mantel again, and mused.
What did it mean? He was sure that the woman
was his grandmother.

At that moment the door opened, and an alert, *
white-haired man stepped in quickly, and stopped in
the centre of the room, looking at his visitor. His
deep, keen eyes gazed out with an intensity that

IX WHICH HE CLAIMS HIS OWN.

27

might almost be fierceness, and the fingers of his fine
hands opened and shut nervously. Though of no
great stature, he had singular dignity. He was in
evening-dress, and as he raised a hand to his chin
quickly, as if in surprise or perplexity, Gaston noticed
that he wore a large seal-ring. It is singular that
while he was engaged with his great event, he was
also thinking what an air of authority the ring
gave.

For a moment the. two men stood at gaze without
speaking, though Gaston stepped forward respect-
fully. A bewildered, almost shrinking look came into
Sir William’s eyes, as the other stood full in the light
of the candles.

Presently the old man spoke. In spite of conven-
tional smoothness, his voice had the ring of distance,
which comes from having lived through and above
painful things.

“ My servant announced you as Sir Gaston Bel-
ward. There is some mistake ? ”

“ There is a mistake,” was the slow reply. “ I did
not give my name as Sir Gaston Belward. That was
Falby’s conclusion, sir. But I am Gaston Robert Bel-
ward, just the same.”

Sir William was dazed, puzzled. He presently
made a quick gesture, as if driving away some foolish
thought, and, motioning to a chair, said :

“ Will you be seated ? ”

28

THE TRESPASSER.

They both sat, Sir William by his writing-table.
His look was now steady and penetrating, but he met
one just as firm.

“ You are — Gaston Robert Belward ? May I ask
for further information ? ”

There was furtive humour playing at Gaston’s
mouth. The old man’s manner had been so unlike
anything he had ever met, save, to an extent, in his
father, that it interested him. He replied, with keen
distinctness :

“ You mean, why I have come — home?”

Sir William’s fingers trembled on a paper-knife.

“ Are you — at home ? ”

“ I have come home to ask for my heritage — with
interest compounded, sir.”

Sir William was now very pale. He got to his
feet, came to the young man, peered into his face,
then drew back to the table and steadied himself
against it. Gaston rose also : his instinct of courtesy
was acute — absurdly civilised — that is, primitive. He
waited.

“ You are Robert’s son? ”

“ Robert Belward was my father.”

“ Your father is dead ? ”

“ Twelve years ago.”

Sir William sank hack in his chair. His thin fin-
gers ran back and forth along his lips. Presently he
took out his handkerchief and coughed into it nerv-

IN WHICH HE CLAIMS HIS OWN.

29

ously. His lips trembled. With a preoccupied air he
arranged a handful of papers on the table.

“ Why did you not come before ? ” he said at last,
in a low, mechanical voice.

“ It was better for a man than a boy to come.”

u May I ask why ? ” t

“ A boy doesn’t always see a situation — gives up
too soon — throws away his rights. My father was a
boy ! ”

“ He was twenty-five when he went away.”

“ I am fifty ! ”

Sir William looked up sharply, perplexed.

“ Fifty?”

“ He only knew this life : I know the world ! ”

“ What world ? ”

“ The great North, the South, the seas at four
corners of the earth.”

Sir William glanced at the top-boots, the peeping
sash, the strong, bronzed face.

“ Who was your mother? ” he asked abruptly.

“ A woman of France.”

The baronet made a gesture of impatience, and
looked searchingly at the young man.

All at once Gaston shot his bolt, to have it over.

“ She had Indian blood also.” j

He stretched himself to his full height, easily,
broadly, with a touch of defiance, and leaned an arm
against the mantel, awaiting Sir William’s reply.

30

THE TRESPASSER.

The old man shrank, then said coldly :

“ Have you the marriage-certificate ? ”

Gaston drew some papers from his pockets.

“ Here, sir, with a letter from my father, and one
from the Hudson’s Bay Company.”

His grandfather took them. With an effort he
steadied himself, then opened and read them one by
one, his son’s brief letter last — it was merely a calm
farewell, with a request that justice should be done
his son.

At that moment Falby entered and said :

“ Her ladyship’s compliments, and all the guests
have arrived, sir.”

“ My compliments to her ladyship, and ask her to
give me five minutes yet, Falby.”

Turning to his grandson, there seemed to be
a moment’s hesitation, then he reached out his
hand.

“You have brought your luggage? — Will you care
to dine with us ? ”

Gaston took the cold outstretched fingers.

“ Only my saddle-bag, and I have no evening-dress
with me, else I should be glad.”

There was another glance up and down the ath-
letic figure, a half-apprehensive smile as the baronet
thought of his wife, and then he said :

“ We must see if anything can be done.”

He pulled a bell-cord. A servant appeared.

IN WHICH HE CLAIMS HIS OWN.

31

“Ask the housekeeper to come for a moment,
please.”

Neither spoke till the housekeeper appeared.

“ Hovey,” he said to the grim woman, “ give Mr.
Gaston the room in the north tower. Then, from the
press in the same room lay out the evening-dress which
you will find there. . . . They were your father’s,” he
added, turning to the young man. “ It was my wife’s
wish to keep them. Have they been aired lately,
Hovey?”

“ Some days ago, sir.”

“That will do.” The housekeeper left, agitated.
“ You will probably be in time for the fish,” he added,
as he bowed to Robert.

“ If the clothes do not fit, sir ? ”

“ Your father was about your height and nearly as
large, and fashions have not changed much ! ”

A few moments afterwards Gaston was in the
room which his father had occupied twenty -seven
years before. The taciturn housekeeper, eying
him excitedly the while, put out the clothes. He
did not say anything till she was about to go.
Then:

“ Hovey, were you here in my father’s time ? ”

“ I was under-parlourmaid, sir,” she said.

“And you are housekeeper now — good ! ”

The face of the woman crimsoned, hiding her dour
wrinkles. She turned away her head.

32

THE TRESPASSER.

“ I’d have given my right hand if he hadn’t gone,
sir.”

Gaston whistled softly, then :

“ So would he, I fancy, before he died. But I
shall not go, so you will not need to risk a finger for
me. I am going to stay, Hovey. Good-night. Look
after Brillon, please.”

He held out his hand. Her fingers twitched in
his, then grasped them nervously.

“ Yes, sir. Good-night, sir. It’s — it’s like him
cornin’ back, sir.”

Then she suddenly turned and hurried from the
room, a blunt figure to whom emotion was not
graceful.

“ H’m ! ” said Gaston, as he shut the door. “ Par-
lourmaid then, eh ? History at every turn ! Void le
sabre de mon pere ! ”

CHAPTER III.

HE TELLS THE STORY OF HIS LIFE.

Gaston Belward was not sentimental : that be-
longs to the middle-class Englishman’s ideal of civili-
sation. But he had a civilisation akin to the highest ;
incongruous, therefore, to the general as the sympa-
thy between the United States and Russia. The high-
est civilisation can be independent. The English aris-
tocrat is at home in the lodge of a Sioux chief or the
bamboo-hut of a Fijian, and makes brothers of “ sav-
ages,” when those other formal folk, who spend their
lives in keeping their dignity, would be lofty and su-
perior.

When Gaston looked at his father’s clothes and
turned them over, he had a twinge of honest emotion ;
but his mind was on the dinner and his heritage, and
he only said, as he frowned at the tightness of the
waistband :

“ Never mind, we’ll make ’em pay, shot and wad-
ding, for what you lost, Robert Belward ; and wher-
ever you are, I hope you’ll see it ! ”

In twelve minutes from the time he entered the
bedroom he was ready. He pulled the bell-cord, and

34

THE TRESPASSER.

then passed out. A servant met him on the stairs,
and in another minute he was inside the dining-room.
Sir William’s eyes flashed up. There was smoulder-
ing excitement in his face, but one could not have
guessed at anything unusual. A seat had been placed
for Gaston beside him. The situation was singular
and trying. It would have been easier if he had mere-
ly come into the drawing-room after dinner. This
was in Sir William’s mind when he asked him to dine ;
but it was as it was. Gaston’s alert glance found the
empty seat. He was about to make towards it, but he
caught Sir William’s eye and saw it signal him to the
end of the table near him. His brain was working
with celerity and clearness. He now saw the woman
whose portrait had so fascinated him in the library.
As his eyes fastened on her here, he almost fancied he
could see the boy’s — his father’s — face looking over
her shoulder.

He instantly went to her, and said :

“ I am sorry to be late.”

His first impulse had been to offer his hand, as,
naturally, he would have done in “ barbaric ” lands,
but the instinct of this other civilisation was at work
in him. He might have been a polite casual guest,
and not a grandson, bringing the remembrance, the
culmination of twenty-seven years’ tragedy into a
home ; she might have been a hostess with whom he
wished to be on terms : that was all.

HE TELLS THE STORY OF HIS LIFE. 35

If the situation was trying for him, it was painful
for her. She had had only a whispered announcement
before Sir William led the way to dinner. Yet she
was now all her husband had been, and more. Re-
pression had been her practice for unnumbered years,
and the only heralds of her feelings were the restless
wells of her dark eyes : the physical and mental misery
she had endured lay hid under the pale composure of
her face. She was now brought suddenly before the
composite image of her past. Yet she merely lifted a
slender hand with long, fine fingers, which, as they
clasped his, all at once trembled, and then pressed
them hotly, nervously. To his surprise, it sent a
twinge of colour to his cheek.

“ It was good of you to come down after such a
journey,” she said. Nothing more.

Then he passed on, and sat down to Sir William’s
courteous gesture. The situation had its difficulties
for the guests — perfect guests as they were. Every-
one was aware of a dramatic incident, for which there
had been no preparation save Sir William’s remark
that a grandson had arrived from the North Pole or
thereabouts ; and fo continue conversation and appear
“ casual ” put their resources to some test. But they
stood it well, though their eyes were busy, and the talk
was cheerfully mechanical. So occupied were they
with Gaston’s entrance, that they did not know how
near Lady Dargan came to fainting.

36

THE TRESPASSER.

At the button-hole of the coat worn by Gaston
hung a tiny piece of red ribbon which she had drawn
from her sleeve on the terrace twenty-seven years ago,
and tied there with the words :

“Do you think you will wear it till we meet
again ? ”

And the man had replied :

“ You’ll not see me without it, pretty girl — pretty
girl!”

A woman is not so unaccountable after all. She
has more imagination than a man ; she has not many
resources to console her for disappointments, and she
prizes to her last hour the swift moments when won-
derful things seemed possible. That man is foolish
who shows himself jealous of a woman’s memories or
tokens — those guarantees of her womanliness.

When Lady Dargan saw the ribbon, which Gaston
in his hurry had not disturbed, tied exactly as she had
tied it, a weird feeling came to her, and she felt chok-
ing. But her sister’s eyes were on her, and Mrs. Gas-
goyne’s voice came across the table clearly :

“ Sophie, what were Fred Bideford’s colours at
Sandown? You always remember that kind of
thing.”

The warning was sufficient. Lady Dargan could
make no effort of memory, but she replied without
hesitation — or conscience :

“ Yellow and brown.”

HE TELLS THE STORY OF HIS LIFE. 37

“ There,” said Mrs. Gasgoyne, “ we are both wrong.
Captain Mandsley ! Sophie never makes a mistake.”

Maudsley assented politely, but, stealing a look at
Lady Dargan, wondered what the little by-play meant.
Gaston was between Sir William and Mrs. Gasgoyne.
He declined soup and fish, which had just been served, f
because he wished for time to get his bearings. He
glanced at the menu as if idly interested, conscious
that he was under observation. He felt that he had,
somehow, the situation in his hands. Everything had
gone well, and he knew that his part had been played
with some aplomb — natural, instinctive. Unlike most
large men, he had a mind always alert, not requiring
the inspiration of unusual moments. What struck
him most forcibly now was the tasteful courtesy which
had made his entrance easy. He instinctively com-
pared it to the courtesy in the lodge of an Indian
chief, or of a Hudson’s Bay factor who has not seen the
outer world for half a century. It was so different,
and yet it was much the same. He had seen a mis-
sionary, a lay-reader, come intoxicated into a council
of chiefs. The chiefs did not show that they knew
his condition till he forced them to do so. Then two
of the young men rose, suddenly pinned him in their
arms, carried him out, and tied him in a lodge. The
next morning they sent him out of their country.
Gaston was no philosopher, but he could “ place ” a
tiling when he saw it : which is a kind of genius.

38

THE TRESPASSER.

Presently Sir William said quietly :

“ Mrs. Gasgoyne, you knew Eobert well ; his son
ought to know you.”

Gaston turned to Mrs. Gasgoyne, and said in his
father’s manner as much as possible, for now his mind
ran back to how his father talked and acted, forming
a standard for him :

“ My father once told me a tale of the Keithley
Hunt — something ‘ away up,’ as they say in the West,
— and a Mrs. Warren Gasgoyne was in it.”

He made an instant friend of Mrs. Gasgoyne —
made her so purposely. This was one of the few
things from his father’s talks upon his past life. He
remembered the story because it was interesting, the
name because it had a sound.

She flushed with pleasure. That story of the Hunt
was one of her sweetest recollections. For her bravery
then she had been voted by the field “ a good fellow,”
and an admiral present declared that she had a head
“ as long as the maintop bow-line.” She loved admi-
ration, though she had no foolish sentiment ; she called
men silly creatures, and yet would go on her knees
across country to do a deserving man-friend a service.
She was fifty and over, yet she had the springing heart
of a girl — mostly hid behind a brusque manner and a
blunt, kindly tongue.

“ Your father could always tell a good story,” she

said.

HE TELLS THE STORY OF HIS LIFE. 39

“ He told me one of you : what about telling me
one of him ? ”

Adaptable, he had at once fallen in with her direct
speech, the more so because it was his natural way ;
any other ways were “ games,” as he himself said.

She flashed a glance at her sister, and smiled half-
ironically.

“ I could tell you plenty,” she said softly. “ He
was a startling fellow, and went far sometimes ; but
you look as if you could go farther.”

Gaston helped himself to an entree, wondering
whether a knife was used with sweetbreads.

“ How far could he go ? ” he asked.

“ In the hunting-field with anybody, with women
endlessly, with meanness like a snail, and when his
blood was up, to the most nonsensical place you can
think of.”

Forks only for sweetbreads ! Gaston picked
one up.

“ He went there.”

“ Who told you ? ”

“ I came from there.”

“ Where is it ? ”

“ A few hundred miles from the Arctic circle.”

“ Oh! I didn’t think it was that climate ! ”

“ It never is till you arrive. You are always out
in the cold there.”

“ That sounds American.”

40

THE TRESPASSER.

“ Every man is a sinner one way or another.”

“You are very clever — cleverer than your father
ever was ! ”

“ I hope so.”

“ Why?”

“ He went — there ! I’ve come — from there ! ”

“ And you think you will stay — never go
back?”

“He was ‘out of it’ for twenty years, and died.
If I am ‘in it’ for that long, I shall have had
enough.”

Their eyes met. The woman looked at him
steadily.

“You won’t be,” she replied, this time seriously,
and in a very low voice.

“ Ho?— why?”

“Because you will tire of it all — though you’ve
started very well ! ”

She then answered a question of Captain Mauds-
ley’s, and turned again to Gaston.

“ What will make me tire of it ? ” he inquired.

She sipped her champagne musingly.

“ Oh, what is in you deeper than all this ; with the
help of some woman probably.”

She looked at him searchingly, then added :

“You seem strangely like and yet unlike your
father to-night.”

“ I am wearing his clothes,” he said.

HE TELLS THE STORY OP HIS LIFE. 41

She had plenty of nerve, but this startled her.
She shrank a little : it seemed uncanny. Now she re-
membered that ribbon in the button-hole !

“Poor Sophie!” she thought. “And this one
will make greater mischief here.” Then, aloud to
him : “ Your father was a good fellow, but he did wild
things.”

“ I do not see the connection,” he answered. “ I
am not a good man, and I shall do wilder things — is
that it ? ”

“ You will do mad things,” she replied hardly
above a whisper, and talked once more with Captain
Maudsley.

Gaston now turned to his grandfather, who had
heard a sentence here and there, and felt that the
young man carried off the situation well enough. He
then began to talk in a general way about Gaston’s
voyage, of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and expedi-
tions to the Arctic, drawing Lady Dargan into the
conversation.

Whatever might be said of Sir William Bel ward
he was an excellent host. He had a cool, unmali-
cious wit, but that man was unwise who offered him-
self to its severity. To-night he surpassed himself in
suggestive talk, until, all at once, seeing Lady Dar-
gan’s eyes fixed on Gaston, he went silent, sitting back
in his chair abstracted. Soon, however, a warning
glance from his wife brought him back and saved

42

THE TRESPASSER.

Lady Dargan from collapse ; for it seemed impossible
to talk alone to this ghost of her past.

At this moment Gaston heard a voice near :

“ As like as if he’d stepped out of the picture, if it
weren’t for the clothes. A Gaston too ! ”

The speaker was Lord Dargan. He was talking to
Archdeacon Varcoe.

Gaston followed Lord Dargan’s glance to the por-
trait of that Sir Gaston Bel ward whose effigy he had
seen. He found himself in form, feature, expression ;
the bold vigilance of eye, the primitive activity of
shoulder, the small firm foot, the nervous power of the
hand. The eyes seemed looking at him. He answered
to the look. There was in him the romantic strain,
and something more ! In the remote parts of his be-
ing there was the capacity for the phenomenal, the
strange. Once again, as in the church, he saw the
field of Naseby, King Charles, Ireton’s men, Cromwell
and his Ironsides, Prince Rupert and the swarming
rush of cavalry, and the end of it all ! — Had it been a
tale of his father’s at camp-fires? Had he read it
somewhere ? He felt his blood thump in his veins !

Another half-hour, wherein he was learning every
minute, nothing escaping him, everything interesting
him, — his grandfather and Mrs. Gasgoyne especially, —
then the ladies retired slowly with their crippled
hostess, who gave Gaston, as she rose, a look almost
painfully intense. It haunted him.

HE TELLS THE STORY OF HIS LIFE. 43

Now Gaston had his chance. He had no fear of
what he could do with men : he had measured himself
a few times with English gentlemen as he travelled,
and he knew where his power lay — not in making
himself agreeable, but in imposing his personality.

The guests were not soon to forget the talk of that
hour. It played into Gaston’s hands. He pretended
to nothing ; he confessed ignorance here and there
with great simplicity ; but he had the gift of reducing
things, as it were, to their original elements. He cut
away to the core of a matter, and having simple, fixed
ideas, he was able to focus the talk, which had begun
with hunting stories, and ended with the morality of
duelling. Gaston’s hunting stories had made them
breathless, his views upon duelling did not free their
lungs.

There were sentimentalists present ; others who,
because it had become etiquette not to cross swords,
thought it indecent. Archdeacon Varcoe would not
be drawn into discussion, but sipped his wine, listened,
and watched Gaston.

The young man measured his grandfather’s mind,
and he drove home his points mercilessly.

Captain Maudsley said something about “ romantic
murder.”

“ That’s the trouble,” Gaston said. “ I don’t know
who killed duelling in England, but behind it must
have been a woman or a shopkeeper : sentimentalism,

44

THE TRESPASSER.

timidity ; dead romance. What is patriotism but ro-
mance ? — ideals is what they call it somewhere. I’ve
lived in a land full of hard work and dangers, but also
full of romance. What is the result ? — A people off
there that you pity, and who don’t need pity. Ro-
mance? See: you only get square justice out of a
wise autocrat, not out of your ‘ twelve true men ’ ;
and duelling is the last decent relic of autocracy.
Suppose the wronged man does get killed ; that is all
right : it wasn’t merely blood he was after, but the
right to hit a man in the eye for a wrong done. What
is all this hullaballoo about saving human life ? There’s
as much interest — and duty — in dying as living, if you
go the way your conscience tells you.”

A couple of hours later, Gaston, after having seen
to his horse, stood alone in the drawing-room with
his grandfather and grandmother. As yet Lady Bel-
ward had spoken not half a dozen words to him. Sir
William presently said to him :

“ Are you too tired to join us in the library ? ”

“ I’m as fresh as paint, sir,” was the reply.

Lady Belward turned without a word, and slowly
passed from the room. Gaston’s eyes followed the
crippled figure, which yet had a rare dignity. He had
a sudden impulse. He stepped to her and said with
an almost boyish simplicity :

“You are very tired; let me carry you — grand-
mother ! ”

HE TELLS THE STORY OF HIS LIFE. 45

He could hear Sir William gasp a little as he laid
a quick warm hand on hers that held the cane. She
looked at him gravely, sadly, and then said :

“ I will take your arm, if you please.”

He took the cane, and she put a hand towards him.
He ran his strong arm round her waist with a little
humouring laugh, her hand rested on his shoulder, and
he timed his step to hers. Sir William was in an eddy
of wonder— a strong head was “mazed.” He had
looked for a different reception of this uncommon kins-
man. How quickly had the new-comer conquered
himself ! And yet he had a slight strangeness of ac-
cent— not American, but something which seemed un-
usual. He did not reckon with a voice which, under
cover of easy deliberation, had a convincing quality ;
with a manner of old-fashioned courtesy and stateli-
ness. As Mrs. Warren Gasgoyne had said to the rector,
whose eyes had followed Gaston everywhere in the draw-
ing-room :

“ My dear archdeacon, where did he get it ? Why,
he has lived most of his life with savages ! ”

“Vandyke might have painted the man,” Lord
Dargan had added.

“ Vandyke did paint him,” had put in Delia Gas-
goyne from behind her mother.

“ How do you mean, Delia ? ” Mrs. Gasgoyne had
added, looking curiously at her.

“ His picture hangs in the dining-room.”

46

THE TRESPASSER.

Then the picture had been discussed, and the girl’s
eyes had followed Gaston — followed him until he had
caught their glance. Without an introduction, he had
come and dropped into conversation with her, till her
mother cleverly interrupted.

Inside the library Lady Belward was comfortably
placed, and looking up at Gaston, said :

“You have your father’s ways : I hope that you will
be wiser.”

“ If you will teach me ! ” he answered gently.

There came two little bright spots on her cheeks,
and her hands clasped in her lap. They all sat down.

Sir William spoke :

“ It is much to ask that you should tell us of your
life now, but it is better that we should start with some
knowledge of, each other.”

At that moment Gaston’s eyes caught the strange
picture on the wall.

“ I understand,” he answered. “ But I would be
starting in the middle of a story.”

“ You mean that you wish to hear your father’s his-
tory ? Did he not tell you ? ”

“ Trifles — that is all.”

“Did he ever speak of me?” asked Lady Belward
with low anxiety.

“ Yes, when he was dying.”

“What did he say?”

“He said: ‘Tell my mother that Truth waits

HE TELLS THE STORY OF HIS LIFE. 47

long, but whips hard. Tell her that I always loved
her.’ ”

She shrank in her chair as if from a blow, and
then was white and motionless.

“ Let us hear your story,” Sir William said with a
sort of hauteur. “ You know your own, much of your
father’s lies buried with him.”

“Very well, sir.”

Sir William drew a chair up beside his wife. Gas-
ton sat back, and for a moment did not speak. He
was looking into distance. Presently the blue of his
eyes went all black, and with strange unwavering
concentration he gazed straight before him. A light
spread over his face, his hands felt for the chair-arms
and held them firmly. He began :

“ I first remember swinging in a blanket from a
pine-tree at a buffalo-hunt while my mother cooked
the dinner. There were scores of tents, horses, and
many Indians and half-breeds, and a few white men.
My father was in command. I can see my mother’s
face as she stood over the fire. It was not darker
than mine ; she always seemed more French than In-
dian, and she was thought comely.”

Lady Belward shuddered a little, but Gaston did
not notice.

“I can remember the great buffalo-hunt. You
heard a heavy rumbling sound ; you saw a cloud on
the prairie. It heaved, a steam came from it, and

48

THE TRESPASSER.

sometimes yon caught the flash of ten thousand eyes
as the beasts tossed their heads and then bent them
again to the ground and rolled on, five hundred men
after them, our women shouting and laughing, and
arrows and bullets flying. ... I can remember a time
also when a great Indian battle happened just outside
the fort, and, with my mother crying after him, my
father went out with a priest to stop it. My father
was wounded, and then the priest frightened them,
and they gathered their dead together and buried
them. We lived in a fort for a long time, and my
mother died there. She was a good woman, and she
loved my father. I have seen her on her knees for
hours praying when he was away. — I have her rosary
now. They called her Ste. Heloise. Afterwards I
was always with my father. He was a good man, but
he was never happy ; and only at the last would he
listen to the priest, though they were always great
friends. He was not a Catholic of course, but he said
that didn’t matter.”

Sir William interrupted huskily :

“ Why did he never come back ? ”

“I do not know quite, but he said to me once :
‘ Gaston, you’ll tell them of me some day, and it will
be a soft pillow for their heads ! You can mend a
broken life, but the ring of it is gone ! ’ I think he
meant to come back when I was about fourteen ; but
things happened, and he stayed.”

HE TELLS THE STORY OF HIS LIFE. 49

There was a pause. Gaston seemed brooding, and
Lady Belward said :

“ Go on, please.”

44 There isn’t so very much to tell. The life was
the only one I had known, and it was all right. But
my father had told me of this life. He taught me
himself — he and Father Decluse and a Moravian mis-
sionary for awhile. I knew some Latin and history, a
bit of mathematics, a good deal of astronomy, some
French poets, and Shakespere. Shakespere is wonder-
ful!.. . My father wanted me to come here at once
after he died, but I knew better — I wanted to get
sense first. So I took a place in the Company. It
wasn’t all fun. I had to keep my wits sharp. I was
only a youngster, and I had to do with men as crafty
and as silly as old Polonius. I was sent to Labrador.
That was not a life for a Christian. Once a year a
ship comes to the port, bringing the year’s mail and
news from the world. When you watch that ship go
out again, and you turn round and see the filthy
Esquimaux and Indians, and know that you’ve got
to live for another year with them, — sit in their
dirty tepees, eat their raw frozen meat, with an
occasional glut of pemmican, and the thermometer
70 degrees below zero, — you get a lump in your
throat.

“Then came one winter. I had one white man,
two half-breeds, and an Indian with me. There was

50

THE TRESPASSER.

darkness day after day, and because tbe Esquimaux
and Indians hadn’t come up to the fort that winter, it
was lonely as a tomb. One by one the men got melan-
choly and then went mad, and I had to tie them up,
and care for them and feed them. The Indian was all
right, but he got afraid, and wanted to start to a mis-
sion station three hundred miles on. It was a bad
lookout for me, but I told him to go. I was left alone.
I was only twenty-one, but I was steel to my toes —
good for wear and tear. Well, I had one solid month
all alone with my madmen. Their jabbering made
me seasick sometimes. At last one day I felt I’d go
staring mad myself if I didn’t do something exciting
to lift me, as it were. I got a revolver, sat at the
opposite end of the room from the three lunatics, and
practised shooting at them. I had got it into my
head that they ought to die, but it was only fair, I
thought, to give them a chance. I would try hard to
shoot all round them — make a halo of bullets for the
head of every one, draw them in silhouettes of solid
lead on the wall.

“ I talked to them first, and told them what I was
going to do. They seemed to understand, and didn’t
object. I began with the silhouettes, of course. I
had a box of bullets beside me. They never squealed.
I sent the bullets round them as pretty as the pattern
of a milliner. Then I began with their heads. I did
two all right. They sat and never stirred. But when

HE TELLS THE STORY OE HIS LIFE. 51

I came to tlie last something happened. It was Jock
Lawson.”

Sir William interposed:

“Jock Lawson ! — Jock Lawson from here?”

“ Yes. His mother keeps ‘ The Whisk o’ Barley.’ ”

“So, that is where Jock Lawson went? He fol-
lowed your father ? ”

“Yes.— Jock was mad enough when I began —
clean gone. But, somehow, the game I was playing
cured him. ‘ Steady, Jock ! ’ I said. * Steady ! ’ for I
saw him move. I levelled for the second bead of the
halo. My finger wras on the trigger. ‘ My God ! don’t
shoot ! ’ he called. It startled me, my hand shook,
the thing went off, and Jock had a bullet through his
brain ! . . . Then I waked up. Perhaps I had been
mad myself — I don’t know. But my brain never
seemed clearer than when I was playing that game.
It was like a magnifying glass : and my eyes were so
clear and strong that I could see the pores on their
skin, and the drops of sweat breaking out on J ock’s
forehead when he yelled ! ”

A low moan came from Lady Belwood. Her face
was drawn and pale, but her eyes were on Gaston with
a deep fascination. Sir William whispered to her.

“ Ho,” she said, “ I will stay.”

Gaston saw the impression he had made.

“Well, I had to bury poor Jock all alone. I don’t
think I should have minded it so much, if it hadn’t

52

THE TRESPASSER.

been for the faces of those other two crazy men. One
of them sat gtill as death, his eyes following me with
one long stare, and the other kept praying all the time
— he’d been a lay preacher once before he backslided,
and it came back on him now naturally. Now it
would be from Bevelation, now out of the Psalms, and
again a swinging exhortation for the Spirit to come
down and convict me of sin. There was a lot of
sanity in it too, for he kept saying at last : ‘ 0 shut
not up my soul tvith the sinners : nor my life with the
bloodthirsty? I couldn’t stand it, with Jock dead
there before me, so I gave him a heavy dose of pare-
goric out of the Company’s stores. Before he took it
he raised his finger and said to me, with a beastly
stare : ‘ Thou art the man ! ’ But the paregoric put
him to sleep. . . .

“Then I gave the other something to eat, and
dragged Jock out to bury him. I remembered then
that he couldn’t be buried, for the ground was too
hard and the ice too thick ; so I got ropes, and, when
he stiffened, slung him np into a big cedar tree, and
then went up myself and arranged the branches about
him comfortably. It seemed to me that Jock was a
baby and I was his father. You couldn’t see any
blood, and I fixed his hair so that it covered the hole
in the forehead. I remember I kissed him on the
cheek, and then said a prayer— one that I ’d got out
of my father’s prayer-book : ‘ That it may please

HE TELLS TIIE STORY OF HIS LIFE. 53

Thee to preserve all that travel hy land or hy water ,
all women labouring of child , all sick persons and
young children ; and to show Thy pity upon all pris-
oners and captives .’ Somehow I had got it into my
head that Jock was going on a long journey, and that
I was a prisoner and a captive.”

Gaston broke off, and said presently :

“ Perhaps this is all too awful to hear, but it gives
you an idea of what kind of things went to make me.”

Lady Belward answered for both :

“ Tell us all — everything ! ”

“ It is late,” said Sir William, nervously.

“What does it matter? It is once in a lifetime,”
she answered sadly.

Gaston took up the thread :

“ Now I come to what will shock you even more,
perhaps. So, be prepared. I don’t know how many
days went, but at last I had three visitors — in time I
should think : a Moravian missionary, and an Esqui-
maux and his daughter. I didn’t tell the missionary
about Jock — there was no use, it could do no good.
They stayed four weeks, and during that time one of the
crazy men died. The other got better, but had to be
watched. I could do anything with him, if I got my
eye on him. Somehow, I must tell you, I’ve got a
lot of power that way. I don’t know where it comes
from. Well, the missionary had to go. The old Es-
quimaux thought that he and his daughter would stay

54

THE TRESPASSER.

on if I’d let them. I was only too glad. But it wasn’t
wise for the missionary to take the journey alone, — it
was a had business in any case. I urged the man that
had been crazy to go, for I thought activity would do
him good. He agreed, and the two left and got to the
Mission Station all right, after wicked trouble. I was
alone with the Esquimaux and his daughter. You
never know why certain things happen, and I can’t
tell why that winter was so weird ; why the old Esqui-
maux should take sick one morning, and in the even-
ing should call me and his daughter Lucy — she’d been
given a Christian name, of course — and say that he
was going to die, and he wanted me to marry her ” —
(Lady Belward exclaimed, Sir William’s hands fin-
gered the chair-arm nervously) — “ there and then, so
that he’d know she would be cared for. He was a
heathen, hut he had been primed by the missionaries
about his daughter. She was a fine, clever girl, and
well educated— the best product of their mission. So
he called for a Bible. There wasn’t one in the place,
but I had my mother’s Book of the Mass. I went to
get it, but when I set my eyes on it, I couldn’t — no, I
couldn’t do it, for I hadn’t the least idea but what I
should bid my lady good-bye when it suited, and I
didn’t want any swearing at all — not a bit. I didn’t
do any. But what happened had to be with or with-
out any ring or book and ‘ Eorasmuch as.’ There had
been so much funeral and sudden death, that a mar-

HE TELLS THE STORY OF IIIS LIFE. 55

riage would be a God-send anyhow. So the old Esqui-
maux got our two hands in his, babbled away in half-
English, half-Esquimaux, with the girl’s eyes shining
like a she-moose over a dying buck, and about the
time we kissed each other, his head dropped back — and
that is all there was about that ! ”

Gaston now kept his eyes on his listeners. He
was aware that his story must sound to them as bru-
tal as might be, but it was a phase of his life, and,
so far as he could, he wanted to start with a clean
sheet ; not out of love of confidence, for he was self-
contained, but he would have enough to do to shep-
herd his future without shepherding his past. He
saw that Lady Belward had a sickly fear in her face,
while Sir William had gone stern and hard.

He went on :

“ It saved the situation, did that marriage ; though
it was no marriage you will say. Neither was it one
way, and I didn’t intend at the start to stand by it an
hour longer than I wished. But she was more than
I looked for, and it seems to me that she saved my
life that winter, or my reason anyhow. There had
been so much tragedy that I used to wonder every
day what would happen before night : and that’s not
a good thing for the brain of a chap of twenty-one
or two. The funny part of it is that she wasn’t a
pagan — not a bit ! She could read and speak English
in a sweet old-fashioned way, and she used to sing to

56

THE TRESPASSER.

me — such a funny, sorry little voice she had — hymns
the Moravians had taught her, and one or two Eng-
lish songs. I taught her one or two besides, ‘ Where
the Hawthorn Tree is Blooming,’ and ‘Allan Water’
— the first my father had taught me, the other an old
Scotch trader. It’s different with a woman and a man
in a place like that. Two men will go mad together,
but there’s a saving something in the contact of a
man’s brain with a woman’s. I got fond of her, —
any man would have, — for she had something that I
never saw in any heathen, certainly in no Indian;
you’ll see it in women from Iceland. I determined to
marry her in regular style when spring and a mission-
ary came. You can’t understand, maybe, how one
can settle to a life where you’ve got companionship,
and let the world go by. About that time, I thought
that I’d let Ridley Court and the rest of it go as a
boy’s dreams go. I didn’t seem to know that I was
only satisfied in one set of my instincts. Spring
came, so did a missionary, and for better or worse
it was ! ”

Sir William came to his feet.

“ My God ! ” he broke out.

His wife tried to rise, but could not.

“This makes everything impossible,” added the
baronet shortly.

“ Oh no, it makes nothing impossible — if you will
listen.”

IIE TELLS THE STORY OF HIS LIFE. 57

Gaston was cool. He had begun playing for the
stakes from one standpoint, and he would not turn
back.

He continued :

“ I lived with her happily : I never expect to have
happiness like that again — never, — and after two
years at another post in Labrador, came word from
the Company that I might go to Quebec, there to be
given my choice of posts. I went. By this time I
had again vague ideas that sometime I should come
here, but how or why I couldn’t tell; I was drift-
ing, and for her sake willing to drift. I was glad
to take her to Quebec, for I guessed she would get
ideas, and it didn’t strike me that she would be out of
place. So we went. But she was out of place in
many ways. It did not suit at all. We were asked to
good houses, for I believe I have always had enough
of the Belward in me to keep my end up anywhere.
The thing went on pretty well, but at last she used to
beg me to go without her to excursions and parties.
There were always one or two quiet women whom she
liked to sit with, and because she seemed happier for
me to go, I did. I was popular, and got along with
women well ; but I tell you honestly I loved my wife
all the time; so that when a Christian busybody
poured into her ears some self-made scandal, it was a
brutal, awful lie — brutal and awful, for she had never
known jealousy : it did not belong to her old social

THE TRESPASSER.

58

creed. But it was in the core of her somewhere, and
an aboriginal passion at work naked is a thing to he
remembered. I had to face it one night. . . .

il I was quiet, and did what I could. After that I
insisted on her going with me wherever I went, but
she had changed, and I saw that, in spite of herself,
the thing grew. One day we went on an excursion
down the St. Lawrence. We were merry, and I was
telling yarns. We were just nearing a landing-stage,
when a pretty girl, with more gush than sense, caught
me by the arm and begged some ridiculous thing of
me — an autograph, or what not. A minute after-
wards I saw my wife spring from the bulwarks down
on the landing-stage, and rush up the shore into the
woods. ... We were two days finding her. That
settled it ! I was sick enough at heart, and I deter-
mined to go back to Labrador. We did so. Every-
thing had gone on the rocks. My wife was not, never
would be, the same again. She taunted me and wor-
ried me, and because I would not quarrel, seemed to
have a greater grievance — jealousy is a kind of mad-
ness. One night she was most galling, and I sat still
and said nothing. My life seemed gone of a heap : I
was sick — sick to the teeth ; hopeless, looking forward
to nothing. I imagine my hard quietness roused her.
She said something hateful — something about having
married her, and not a woman from Quebec. I smiled
— I couldn’t help it; then I laughed, a bit wild, I

HE TELLS THE STORY OF HIS LIFE. 59

suppose. I saw the flash of steel. ... I believe I
laughed in her face as I fell. When I came to she
was lying with her head on my breast — dead — stone
dead ! ”

Lady Belward sat with closed eyes, her fingers
clasping and unclasping on the top of her cane ; but
Sir William wore a look half-satisfied, half-excited.

He now hurried his story.

“ I got well, and after that stayed in the North for
a year. Then I passed down the continent to Mexico
and South America. There I got a commission to go
to New Zealand and Australia to sell a lot of horses.
I did so, and spent some time in the South Sea Is-
lands. Again I drifted back to the Rockies and over
into the plains ; found Jacques Brillon, my servant,
had a couple of years’ work and play, gathered together
some money, as good a horse and outfit as the North
could give, and started with Brillon and his broncho, —
having got both sense and experience, I hope — for
Ridley Court. And here I am ! There’s a lot of my
life that I haven’t told you of, but it doesn’t matter,
because it’s adventure mostly, and it can be told at
any time ; but these are essential facts, and it is better
that you should hear them. And that is all, grand-
father and grandmother.”

After a minute Lady Belward rose, leaned on her
crutch, and looked at him wistfully. Sir William
said :

GO

THE TRESPASSER.

“Are you sure that you will suit this life, or it
you ? ”

“ It is the only idea I have at present ; and, any-
how, it is my rightful home, sir.”

“ I was not thinking of your rights, hut of the
happiness of us all.”

Lady Bel ward limped to him, and laid a hand on
his shoulder.

“ You have had one great tragedy, so have we :
neither could hear another. Try to be worthy — of
your home.”

Then she solemnly kissed him on the cheek.

Soon afterwards they went to their rooms.

CHAPTER IV.

AN- HOUR WITH HIS FATHER’S PAST.

Ih his bedroom Gaston made a discovery. He
chanced to place his hand in the tail-pocket of the
coat he had worn. He drew forth a letter. The ink
was faded, and the lines were scrawled. It ran :

“ It’s no good. Mr. Ian’s been ! It’s face the musik now.
If you want me, say so. I’m for kicks or ha’pence — no
diffrense. “ Yours, J.”

He knew the writing very well — Jock Lawson’s!
There had been some trouble, and Mr. Ian had
“been,” bringing peril. What was it? Ilis father
and Jock had kept the secret from him.

He put his hand in the pocket again. There was
another note — this time in a woman’s handwriting :

“ Oh, come to me, if you would save us both ! Do not fail !
God help us ! Oh, Robert ! ”

It was signed “ Agnes.”

Well, here was something of mystery; but he did
not trouble himself about that. He was not at Rid-
ley Court to solve mysteries, to probe into the past, to

62

THE TRESPASSER.

set liis father’s wrongs right ; but to serve himself, to
reap for all those years wherein his father had not
reaped. He enjoyed life, and he would search this
one to the full of his desires. Before he retired he
studied the room, handling things that lay where his
father placed them so many years before. He was
not without emotions in this, but he held himself
firm.

As he stood ready to get into bed, his eyes chanced
upon a portrait of his uncle Ian.

“ There’s where the tug comes ! ” he said, nodding
at it. “ Shake hands, and ten paces, IJncle Ian?”

Then he blew out the candle, and in five minutes
was sound asleep.

He was out at six o’clock. He made for the
stables, and found Jacques pacing the yard. He
smiled at Jacques’ dazed look.

“What about the horse, Brillon?” he said, nod-
ding as he came up.

“ Saracen’s had a slice of the stable-boy’s shoulder
-si,”

Amusement loitered in Gaston’s eyes. The “ sir ”
had stuck in J acques’ throat.

“ Saracen has established himself, then ? Good !
And the broncho ? ”

“ Bien, a trifle only. They laugh much in the
kitchen ”

“ The hall, Brillon.”

AN HOUR WITH HIS FATHER’S PAST. 63

“ in the hall last night. That hired man

over there ”

“ That groom, Brillon.”

“ that groom, he was a fool, and fat. He was

the worst. This morning he laugh at my broncho.
He say a horse like that is nothing : no pace, no
travel. I say the broncho was not so ver’ bad, and I
tell him try the paces. I whisper soft, and the
broncho stand like a lamb. He mount, and sneer,
and grin at the high pommel, and start. For a
minute it was pretty; and then I give a little soft
call, and in a minute there was the broncho bucking
— doubling like a hoop, and dropping same as lead.
Once that — groom — come down on the pommel, then
over on the ground like a ball, all muck and blood ! ”

The half-breed paused, looking innocently before
him. Gaston’s mouth quirked.

“A solid success, Brillon. Teach them all the
tricks you can. At ten o’clock come to my room.
The campaign begins then.”

Jacques ran a hand through his long black hair,
and fingered his sash. Gaston understood.

“ The hair and ear-rings may remain, Brillon ; but
the beard and clothes must go — except for occasions.
Come along ! ”

For the next two hours Gaston explored the stables
and the grounds. Nothing escaped him. He gathered
every incident of the surroundings, and talked to the

THE TRESPASSER.

U

sorvants freely, softly, and easily, yet with a superior-
ity, which suddenly was imposed in the case of the
huntsman at the kennels — for the Whipshire hounds
were here. Gaston had never ridden to hounds. It
was not, however, his cue to pretend knowledge. He
was strong enough to admit ignorance. He stood
leaning against the door of the kennels, arms folded,
eyes half-closed, with the sense of a painter, before the
turning bunch of brown and white, getting the charm
of distance and soft tones. His blood beat hard, for
suddenly he felt as if he had been behind just such a
pack one day, one clear desirable day of spring. He
saw people gathering at the kennels ; saw men drink
beer and eat sandwiches at the door of the huntsman’s
house, — a long, low dwelling, with crumbling arched
doorways like those of a monastery, — watched them
get away from the top of the moor, he among them ;
heard the horn, the whips; and saw the fox break
cover. Then came a rare run for five sweet miles —
down a long valley — over quick-set hedges, with stiff-
ish streams — another hill — a great combe — a lovely
valley stretching out — a swerve to the right — over a
gate — and the brush got at a farm-house door !

Surely, he had seen it all ; but what kink of the
brain was it that the men wore flowing wigs and im-
mense boot-legs, and sported lace in the hunting-field ?
And why did he see within that picture another of
two ladies and a gentleman hawking ?

AN HOUR WITH IIIS FATHER’S PAST. 65

He was roused from his dream by hearing the
huntsman say in a quizzical voice :

“ How do you like the dogs , sir ? ”

To his last day Lugley, the huntsman, remembered
the slow look of cold surprise, of masterful malice,
scathing him from head to foot. The words that fol-
lowed the look, simple as they were, drove home the
naked reproof :

“ What is your name, my man ? ”

“ Lugley, sir.”

“Lugley! Lugley! H’m ! Well, Lugley, I like
the hounds better than I like you. Who is Master of
the Hounds, Lugley ? ”

“ Captain Maudsley, sir.”

“Just so. You are satisfied with your place,
Lugley?”

“ Yes, sir,” said the man in a humble voice, now
cowed.

The news of the arrival of the strangers had come
to him late at night, and, with Whipsliire stupidity,
he had thought that anyone coming from the wilds of
British America must be but a savage after all.

“Very well; I wouldn’t throw myself out of a
place, if I were you.”

“ Oh, no, sir ! Beg pardon, sir ; I ”

“ Attend to your hounds there, Lugley.”

So saying, Gaston nodded Jacques away with him,
leaving the huntsman sick with apprehension.

66

THE TRESPASSER.

“ You see how it is to be done, Brillon ? ” said
Gaston.

Jacques’ brown eyes twinkled.

“ You have the grand trick, sir.”

“ I enjoy the game ; and so shall you, if you will.
You’ve begun well. I don’t know much of this
life yet ; but it seems to me that they are all part of a
machine, not the idea behind the machine. They
have no invention. Their machine is easy to learn.
Do not pretend; but for every bit you learn show
something better, something to make them dizzy now
and then.”

He paused on a knoll and looked down. The
castle, the stables, the cottages of labourers and vil-
lagers lay before them. In a certain highly-cultivated
field, men were working. It was cut off in squares and
patches. It had an air which struck Gaston as un-
usual ; why, he could not tell. But he had a strange
divining instinct, or whatever it may be called. He
made for the field and questioned the workmen.

The field was cut up into allotment gardens.
Here, at a nominal rent, the cottager could grow his
vegetables ; a little spot of the great acre of England,
which gave the labourer a tiny sense of ownership, of
manhood. Gaston was interested. More, he was de-
termined to carry that experiment further, if he ever
got the chance. There was no socialism in him. The
true barbarian is like the true aristocrat: more a

AN HOUR WITH HIS FATHER’S PAST. 07

giver of gifts than a lover of co-operation ; concerning
ownership by right of power and superior independ-
ence, hereditary or otherwise. Gaston was both bar-
barian and aristocrat.

“ Brillon,” he said, as they walked on, “ do you
think they would be happier on the prairies with a
hundred acres of land, horses, cows, and a pen of
pigs?”

“ Can I be happy here all at once, sir ? ”

“That’s just it. It’s too late for them. They
couldn’t grasp it unless they went when they were
youngsters. They’d long for ‘ Home and Old Eng-
land ’ and this grub-and-grind life. God in heaven,
look at them — crumpled-up creatures ! And I’ll stake
my life, they were as pretty children as you’d care to
see. They are out of place in the landscape, Brillon ;
for it is all luxury and lush, and they are crumples —
crumples ! But yet there isn’t any use being sorry
for them, for they don’t grasp anything outside the
life they are living. Can’t you guess how they live ? —
Look at the doors of the houses shut, and the win-
dows sealed ; yet they’ve been up these three hours !
And they’ll suck in bad air, and bad food ; and they’ll
get cancer, and all that ; and they’ll die, and be trotted
away to the graveyard for 4 passun ’ to hurry them
into their little dark cots, in the blessed hope of ever-
lasting life ! I’m going to know this thing, Brillon,
from tooth to ham-string ; and, however it goes, we’ll

68

THE TRESPASSER.

have lived up and down the whole scale, and that’s
something ! ”

He suddenly stopped, and then added :

“ I’m likely to go pretty far in this. I can’t tell
how or why, but it’s so. How, once more, as yester-
day afternoon, for good or for had, for long or for
short, for the gods or for the devil, are you with me ?
There’s time to turn hack even yet, and I’ll say no
word to your going.”

“ Mon Dieu ! a vow is a vow. When I cannot run
I will walk, when I cannot walk I will crawl after you
— comme $a ! ”

Lady Belward did not appear at breakfast. Sir
William and Gaston breakfasted alone at half-past
nine o’clock. The talk was of the stables and the
estate generally.

The breakfast-room looked out on a soft lawn,
stretching away into a broad park, through which a
stream ran ; and beyond was a green hill-side. The
quiet, the perfect order and discipline, gave a pleasant
tingle to Gaston’s veins. It was all so easy, and yet
so admirable — elegance without weight. He felt at
home. He was not certain of some trifles of etiquette ;
but he and Sir William were alone, and he followed
his instincts. Once he frankly asked his grandfather
of a matter of form, of which he was uncertain the
evening before. The thing was done so naturally
that the conventional mind of the baronet was not

AN HOUR WITH HIS FATHER’S PAST. 69

disturbed. The Belwards were notable for their
brains, and Sir William saw that the young man had
an unusual share. He also felt that this startling in-
dividuality might make a hazardous future ; but he
liked the fellow, and he had a debt to pay to the son
of his own dead son. Of course, if their wills came
into conflict, there could be but one thing — the young
man must yield ; or, if he played the fool, there must
be an end. Still, he hoped the best. When break-
fast was finished, he proposed going to the library.

There Sir William talked of the future, asked
what Gaston’s ideas were, and questioned him as to
his present affairs. Gaston frankly said that he
wanted to live as his father would have done, and that
he had no property, and no money beyond a hundred
pounds, which would last him a couple of years on the
prairies, but would be fleeting here.

Sir William at once said that he would give him a
liberal allowance, with, of course, the run of his own
stables and their house in town : and when he mar-
ried acceptably, his allowance would be doubled.

“And I wish to say, Gaston,” he added, “that
your uncle Ian, though heir to the title, does not
necessarily get the property, which is not entailed.
Upon that point I need hardly say more. He has dis-
appointed us. Through him Robert left us. Of his
character I need not speak. Of his ability the world
speaks variably : he is an artist. Of his morals I need

70

THE TRESPASSER.

only say that they are scarcely those of an English
gentleman, though whether that is because he is an
artist, I cannot say — I really cannot say. I remember
meeting a painter at Lord Dunfolly’s, — Dunfolly is a
singular fellow, — and he struck me chiefly as harm-
less, distinctly harmless. I could not understand
why he was at Dunfolly’s, he seemed of so little use,
though Lady Malfire, who writes or something,
mooned with him a good deal. I believe there was
some scandal or something afterwards. I really do
not know. But you are not a painter, and I believe
you have character — I fancy so.”

“ If you mean that I don’t play fast and loose, sir,
you are right. What I do, I do as straight as a
needle.”

The old man sighed carefully.

“ You are very like Robert, and yet there is some-
thing else. I don’t know, I really don’t know what ! ”

“ I ought to have more in me than the rest of the
family, sir.”

This was somewhat startling. Sir William’s fin-
gers stroked his beardless cheek uncertainly.

“ Possibly — possibly.”

“ I’ve lived a broader life, I’ve got wider standards,
and there are three races at work in me.”

“ Quite so, quite so ; ” and Sir William fumbled
among his papers nervously.

“ Sir,” said Gaston suddenly, “I told you last

AN HOUR WITH HIS FATHER’S PAST. 71

niglit the honest story of my life. I want to start
fair and square. I want the honest story of my
father’s life here; how and why he left, and what
these letters mean ! ”

He took from his pocket the notes he had found
the night before, and handed them. Sir William
read them with a disturbed look, and turned them
over and over. Gaston told where he had found
them.

Sir William spoke at last.

“ The main story is simple enough. Robert was
extravagant, and Ian was vicious and extravagant
also. Both got into trouble. I was younger then,
and severe. Robert hid nothing, Ian all he could.
One day things came to a climax. In his wild way,
Robert — with Jock Lawson — determined to rescue a
young man from the officers of justice, and to get
him out of the country. There were reasons. He
was the son of a gentleman; and, as we discovered
afterwards, Robert had been too intimate with the
wife — his one sin of the kind, I believe. Ian came
to know, and prevented the rescue. Meanwhile, Rob-
ert was liable to the law for the attempt. There was
a bitter scene here, and I fear that my wife and I
said hard things to Robert.”

Gaston’s eyes were on Lady Belward’s portrait.

“ What did my grandmother say ? ”

There was a pause, then :

72

THE TRESPASSER.

“ That she would never call him son again, I be-
lieve; that the shadow of his life would be hateful
to her always. I tell you this because I see you look
at that portrait. What I said, I think, was no less.
So, Robert, after a wild burst of anger, flung away
from us out of the house. His mother, suddenly re-
penting, ran to follow him, but fell on the stone steps
at the door, and became a cripple for life ! At first
she remained bitter against Robert, and at that time
Ian painted that portrait. It is clever, as you may
see, and weird. But there came a time when she
kept it as a reproach to herself, not Robert. She is
a good woman — a very good woman ! I know none
better, really no one ! ”

“ What became of the arrested man ? ” Gaston
asked quietly, with the oblique suggestiveness of a
counsel.

“ He died of a broken blood-vessel on the night
of the intended rescue, and the matter was hushed
up.”

“ What became of the wife ? ”

“ She died also within a year.”

“ Were there any children ? ”

“ One — a girl.”

“ Whose was the child ? ”

“ You mean ? ”

“ The husband’s or the lover’s ? ”

There was a pause.

AN HOUR WITH HIS FATHER’S PAST. 73

“ I cannot tell you.”

“ Where is the girl ? ”

“ My son, do not ask that. It can do no good —
really no good.”

“ Is it not my due ? ”

“ Do not impose your due. Believe me, I know
best. If ever there is need to tell you, you shall he
told. Trust me. Has not the girl her due also ? ”

Gaston’s eyes held Sir William’s a moment.

“You are right, sir,” he said, “quite right. I
shall not try to know. But if ” He paused.

Sir William spoke :

“ There is but one person in the world who knows
the child’s father ; and I could not ask him, though I
have known him long and well — indeed, no ! ”

“I do not ask to understand more,” Gaston re-
plied. “ I almost wish I had known nothing. And
yet I will ask one thing : Is the girl in comfort and
good surroundings?”

“ The best — ah, yes, the very best.”

There was a pause, in which both sat thinking;
then Sir William wrote out a cheque and offered it,
with a hint of emotion. He was recalling how he had
done the same with this boy’s father.

Gaston understood. He got up, and said :

“ Honestly, sir, I don’t know how I shall turn out
here ; for, if I don’t like it, it couldn’t hold me, or, if
it did, I should probably make things uncomfortable.

n

THE TRESPASSER.

But I think I shall like it, and I will do my best to
make things go well. Good-morning, sir.”

With courteous attention Sir William let his grand-
son out of the room.

And thus did a young man begin his career as
Gaston Belward, Gentleman.

CHAPTER Y.

WHEREIN HE FIHDS HIS EHEMY.

IIow that career was continued there are many
histories : Jock Lawson’s mother tells of it in her
way, Mrs. Gasgoyne in hers, Hovey in hers, Captain
Maudsley in his ; and so on. Each looks at it from
an individual standpoint. But all agree on two mat-
ters : that he did things hitherto unknown in the
country-side ; and that he was free and affable, but
could pull one up smartly if necessary.

He would sit by the hour and talk with Bimley,
the cottager ; with Rosher, the hotel-keeper, who
when young had travelled far; with a sailor-man,
home for a holiday, who said he could spin a tidy
yarn ; and with Pogan, the groom, who had at last
won Saracen’s heart. But one day when the meagre
village chemist saw him cracking jokes with Beard
the carpenter, and sidled in with a silly air of equality,
which was merely insolence, Gaston softly dismissed
him with his ears tingling. The carpenter proved his
right to be a friend of Gaston’s by not changing

76

THE TRESPASSER.

countenance and by never speaking of the thing after-
wards.

His career was interesting during the eighteen
months wherein society papers chatted of him amiably
and romantically. He had entered into the joys of
hunting with enthusiasm and success, and had made
a fast and admiring friend of Captain Maudsley ;
while Saracen held his own grandly. He had dined
with county people, and had dined them ; had entered
upon the fag-end of the London season with keen,
amused enjoyment ; and had engrafted every little use
of the convention. The art was learned, but the man
was always apart from it; using it as a toy, yet not
despising it ; for, as he said, it had its points, it was
necessary. There was yachting in the summer ; but
he was keener to know the life of England and his
heritage than to roam afar, and most of the year was
spent on the estate and thereabouts : with the steward,
with the justices of the peace, in the fields, in the
kennels, among the accounts.

To-day he was in London, haunting Tattersall’s,
the East End, the docks, his club, the London Library
— he had a taste for English history, especially for
t that of the seventeenth century ; he saturated himself
with it : to-morrow he would present to his grand-
father a scheme for improving the estate and benefit-
ing the cottagers. Or he would suddenly enter the
village school, and daze and charm the children by

WHEREIN HE FINDS HIS ENEMY. 77

asking them strange yet simple questions, which sent
a shiver of interest to their faces.

One day at the close of his second hunting-season
there was to be a ball at the Court, the first public
declaration of acceptance by his people; for, at his
wish, they did not entertain for him in town the pre- *
vious season — Lady Belward had not lived in town for
years. But all had gone so well, — if not with absolute
smoothness, and with some strangeness, — that Gaston
had become an integral part of their life, and they had
ceased to look for anything sensational.

This ball was to be the seal of their approval. It
had been mentioned in Truth with that freshness and
point all its own. What character than Gaston’s
could more appeal to its naive imagination ? It said
in a piquant note that he did not wear a dagger and
sombrero.

Everything was ready. Decorations were up, the
cook and the butler had done their parts. At eleven
in the morning Gaston had time on his hands. Walk-
ing out, he saw two or three children peeping in at
the gateway.

He would visit the village school. He found the
junior curate troubling the youthful mind with what
their godfathers and godmothers did for them, and ,
begging them to do their duty “ in that state of life,”
etc. He listened, wondering at the pious opacity, and
presently asked the children to sing. With inimita-

78

THE TRESPASSER.

ble melancholy they sang, “ Oh, the Roast Beef of Old
England ! ”

Gaston sat back and laughed softly till the curate
felt uneasy, till the children, waking to his humour,
gurgled a little in the song. With his thumbs caught
lightly in his waistcoat pockets, he presently began to
talk with the children in an easy, quiet voice. He
asked them little out-of-the-way questions, he lifted
the school-room from their minds, and then he told
them a story, showing them on the map where the
place was, giving them distances, the kind of climate,
and a dozen other matters of information, without the
nature of a lesson. Then he taught them the chorus
— the Board forbade it afterwards — of a negro song,
which told how'those who behaved themselves well in
this world should ultimately,

“ Blow on, blow on, blow on dat silver horn ! ”

It was on this day that, as he left the school, he
saw Ian Belward driving past. He had not met his
uncle since his arrival, — the artist had been in Mo-
rocco,— nor had he heard of him save through a note
in a newspaper which said that he was giving no pow-
erful work to the world, nor, indeed, had done so for
several years ; and that he preferred the purlieus of
Montparnasse to Holland Park.

They recognised each other. Ian looked his
nephew up and down with a cool kind of insolence

WHEREIN HE FINDS HIS ENEMY.

79

as he passed, but did not make any salutation. Gas-
ton went straight to the castle. He asked for his
uncle, and was told that he had gone to Lady Bel-
ward. He wandered to the library: it was empty.
He lit a cigar, took down a copy of Matthew Arnold’s
poems, opening at “ Sohrab and Rustum,” read it with
a quick-beating heart, and then came to “ Tristram
and Iseult.” He knew little of “ that Arthur ” and
his knights of the Round Table, and Iseult of Brit-
tany was a new figure of romance to him. In Tenny-
son, he had got no further than “ Locksley Hall,”
which, he said, had a right tune and wrong words ;
and “ Maud,” which “ was big in pathos.” The story
and the metre of “ Tristram and Iseult ” beat in his
veins. He got to his feet, and, standing before the
window, repeated a verse aloud :

“ Cheer, cheer thy dogs into the brake,

0 hunter ! and without a fear
Thy golden-tassell’d bugle blow,

And through the glades thy pasture take —

For thou wilt rouse no sleepers here !

For these thou seest are unmoved ;

Cold, cold as those who lived and loved
A thousand years ago.”

He was so engrossed that he did not hear the door
open. He again repeated the lines with the affection-
ate modulation of a musician. He knew that they
were right. They were hot with life — a life that was
no more a part of this peaceful landscape than a palm-

80

THE TRESPASSER.

tree would be. He felt that he ought to read the
poem in a desert, out by the Polar Sea, down on the
Amazon, yonder at Nukualofa; that it would fit in
with bearding the Spaniards two hundred years ago !
Bearding the Spaniards ! — What did he mean by that ?
He shut his eyes and saw a picture : A Moorish castle,
men firing from the battlements under a blazing sun,
a multitude of troops before a tall splendid -looking
man, in armour chased with gold and silver, and fine
ribbons flying. A woman was lifted upon the battle-
ments. He saw the gold of her necklace shake on
her flesh like sunlight on little waves. He heard a
cry

At that moment someone said behind him :

“ You have your father’s romantic manner.”

He quietly put down the book, and met the other’s
eyes with a steady directness.

“ Your memory is good, sir.”

“ Less than thirty years — h’m, not so very long ! ”

“ Looking back — no. You are my father’s brother,
Ian Bel ward ? ”

“ Your uncle Ian.”

There was a kind of quizzical loftiness in Ian Bel-
ward’s manner.

“ Well, Uncle Ian, my father asked me to say that
he hoped you would get as much out of life as he had,
and that you would leave it as honest.”

“ Thank you. That is very like Robert. He loved

WHEREIN HE FINDS HIS ENEMY.

81

making little speeches. It is a pity we did not pull
together ; but I was hasty, and he was rash. He had
a foolish career, and you are the result. My mother
has told me the story — his and yours.”

He sat down, ran his fingers through his grey-
brown hair, and looking into a mirror, adjusted the
bow of his tie, and flipped the flying ends. The kind
of man was new to Gaston : self-indulgent, intelli-
gent, heavily nourished, nonchalant, with a coarse
kind of handsomeness. He felt that here was a
man of the world, equipped mentally cap-a-pie, as
keen as cruel. Reading that in the light of the past,
he was ready.

“ And yet his rashness will hurt you longer than
your haste hurt him ! ”

The artist took the hint bravely.

“ That you will have the estate, and I the title, eh ?
Well, that looks likely just now ; but I doubt it all
the same. You’ll mess the thing one way or an-
other.”

He turned from the contemplation of himself, and
eyed Gaston lazily. Suddenly he started.

“ Begad,” he said, “ where did you get it ? ”

He rose.

Gaston understood that he saw the resemblance to
Sir Gaston Belward.

“Before you were, I am. I am nearer the real
stuff.”

82

THE TRESPASSER.

The other measured his words insolently :

“But the Pocahontas soils the stream — that’s
plain ! ”

A moment after Gaston was beside the prostrate
body of his uncle, feeling his heart.

“ Good God,” he said, “ I didn’t think I hit so
hard!”

He felt the pulse, looked at the livid face, then
caught open the waistcoat and put his ear to the
chest. He did it all coolly, though swiftly — he was
born for action and incident. And during that mo-
ment of suspense he thought of a hundred things,
chiefly that, for the sake of the family — the family ! —
he must not go to trial. There were easier ways.

But presently he found that the heart beat.

“ Good ! good ! ” he said, undid the collar, got
some water, and rang a bell. Falby came. Gaston
ordered some brandy, and asked for Sir William.
After the brandy had been given, consciousness re-
turned. Gaston lifted him up.

He presently swallowed more brandy, and while
yet his head was at Gaston’s shoulder, said :

“ You are a hard hitter. But you’ve certainly lost
the game now ! ”

Here he made an effort, and with Gaston’s assist-
ance got to his feet. At that moment Falby entered
to say that Sir William was not in the house. With
a wave of the hand Gaston dismissed him. Deathly

WHEREIN HE FINDS IIIS ENEMY.

83

pale, his uncle lifted his eyebrows at the graceful
gesture.

“ You do it fairly, nephew,” he said ironically yet
faintly, — “ fairly in such little things ; but a gentle-
man, your uncle, your elder, with fists ! — that smacks
of low company ! ”

Gaston made a frank reply as he smothered his
pride :

“ I am sorry for the blow, sir ; but was the fault
all mine ? ”

“ The fault ? Is that the question ? Faults and
manners are not the same. At bottom you lack in
manners ; and that will ruin you at last ! ”

“ You slighted my mother ! ”

“ Oh, no ! and if I had, you should not have
seen it.”

“ I am not used to swallow insults. It is your way,
sir. I know your dealings with my father ! ”

“A little more brandy, please. But your father
had manners, after all. You are as rash as he ; and
in essential matters clownish — which he was not.”

Gaston was well in hand now, cooler even than his
uncle.

“ Perhaps you will sum up your criticism now,
sir, to save future explanation ; and then accept my
apology.”

“ To apologise for what no gentleman pardons or
does, or acknowledges openly when done! — H’m !

84

THE TRESPASSER.

Were it not well to pause in time, and go back to
your wild North? Why so difficult a saddle — Tar-
tarin after Napoleon ? Think — Tartarin’s end ! ”

Gaston deprecated with a gesture :

“ Can I do anything for you, sir ?”

His uncle now stood up, but swayed a little, and ,
winced from sudden pain. A wave of malice crossed
his face.

“ It’s a pity we are relatives, with France so near !”
he said, “ for I see you love fighting.” ^Vfter an in-
stant he added, with a carelessness as much assumed
as natural : “You may ring the bell, and tell Falby
to come to my room. And because I am to appear at
the flare-up to-night — all in honour of the prodigal’s
son, — this matter is between us, and we meet as lov-
ing relatives ! You understand my motives, Gaston
Robert Bel ward ? ”

“ Thoroughly.”

Gaston rang the bell, and went to open the door
for his uncle to pass out. Ian Belward buttoned his
close-fitting coat, cast a glance in the mirror, and then
eyed Gaston’s fine figure and well-cut clothes. In the
presence of his nephew, there grew the envy of a man
who knew that youth was passing while every hot in-
stinct and passion remained. For his age he was im-
possibly young. Well past fifty he looked thirty-five,
no more. Ilis luxurious soul loathed the approach of
age. Unlike many men of indulgent natures, he loved

WHEREIN HE FINDS HIS ENEMY.

85

youth for the sake of his art, and he had sacrificed
upon that altar more than most men — sacrificed oth-
ers ! His cruelty was not as that of the roughs of
Seven Dials or Belleville, hut it was pitiless. He ad-
mitted to those who asked him why and wherefore
when his selfishness became brutality, that everything i
had to give way for his work. His painting of Ari-
adne represented the misery of two women’s lives.
And of such was his kingdom of Art.

As he now looked at Gaston he was again struck
with the resemblance to the portrait in the dining-
room, with his foreign out-of-the-way air : something
that should be seen beneath the flowiug wigs of the
Stuart period. He had long wanted to do a statue of
the ill-fated Monmouth, and another greater than
that. Here was the very man : with a proud, daring,
homeless look, a splendid body, and a kind of cavalier
conceit. It was significant of him, of his attitude to-
wards himself where his work was concerned, that he
suddenly turned and shut the door again, telling Fal-
by, who appeared, to go to his room ; and then said :

“ You are my debtor, Cadet — I shall call you that :
you shall have a chance of paying.”

“ How ? ”

In a few concise words he explained, scanning the
other’s face eagerly.

Gaston showed nothing. He had passed the apo-
gee of irritation.

86

THE TRESPASSER.

“ A model ? ” he questioned drily.

“ Well, if you put it that way. ‘ Portrait ’ sounds
better. It shall be Gaston Belward, gentleman ; but
we will call it in public, ‘Monmouth the Trespasser.’”

Gaston did not wince. He had taken all the re-
venge he needed. The idea rather pleased him than
otherwise. He had instincts about art, and he liked
pictures, statuary, poetry, romance ; but he had no
standards. He was keen also to see the life of the
artist, to touch that aristocracy more distinguished by
mind than manners.

“ If that gives ‘ clearance,’ yes. And your debt to
me?”

“ I owe you nothing. You find your own mean-
ing in my words. I was railing, you were serious. Do
not be serious. Assume it sometimes, if you will ; be
amusing mostly. So, you will let me paint you — on
your own horse, eh ? ”

“ That is asking much. Where ? ”

“ Oh, a sketch here this afternoon, while the thing
is hot — if this damned headache stops ! Then at my
studio in London in the spring, or ” — here he laughed
— “ in Paris. I am modest, you see ! ”

“ As you will.”

Gaston had had a desire for Paris, and this seemed
to give a cue for going. He had tested London nearly
all round. He had yet to be presented at St. James’s,
and elected a member of the Bachelors Club. Cer-

WHEREIN HE FINDS HIS ENEMY.

87

tainly he had not visited the Tower, Windsor Castle,
and the Zoo ; but that would only disqualify him in
the eyes of a Colonial.

Ilis uncle’s face flushed slightly. He had not ex-
pected such good fortune. He felt that he could do
anything with this romantic figure. He would do
two pictures : Monmouth, and an ancient subject —
that legend of the ancient city of Ys, on the coast
of Brittany. He had had it in his mind for years.
He came back and sat down, keen, eager.

“ I’ve a big subject brewing,” he said ; “ better
than the Monmouth, though it is good enough as I
shall handle it. It shall be royal, melancholy, devil-
ish : a splendid bastard with creation against him ;
the best, most fascinating subject in English his-
tory. The son dead on against the father — and the
uncle ! ”

He ceased for a minute, fashioning the picture in
his mind ; his face pale, but alive with interest, which
his enthusiasm made into dignity. Then he went on :

“ But the other : when the king takes up the
woman — his mistress — and rides into the sea with
her on his horse, to save the town ! By God, with
you to sit, it’s my chance ! You’ve got it all there
in you — the immense manner ! You, a nineteenth
century gentleman, to do this game of Ridley Court,
and paddle round the Row ? — Hot you ! You’re
clever, and you’re crafty, and you’ve a way with you !

88

THE TRESPASSER.

But you’ll come a cropper at this as sure as I shall
paint two big pictures — if you’ll stand to your
word ! ”

“We need not discuss my position here. I am
in my proper place — in my father’s home. But for
the paintings and Paris, as you please ! ”

“ That is sensible — Paris is sensible ; for you ought
to see it right, and I’ll show you what half the world
never see, and wouldn’t appreciate if they did. You’ve
got that old, barbaric taste, romance, and you’ll find
your metier in Paris.”

Gaston now knew the most interesting side of his
uncle’s character, — which few people ever saw, and
they mostly women who came to wish they had never
felt the force of that occasional enthusiasm. He had
been in the National Gallery several times, and over
and over again he had visited the picture places in
Bond Street as he passed ; but he wanted to get be-
hind art life, to dig out the heart of it.

CHAPTEE VI.

WHICH TELLS OF STRANGE ENCOUNTERS.

A few hours afterwards Gaston sat on his horse,
in a quiet corner of the grounds, while his uncle
sketched him. After a time he said that Saracen
would remain quiet no longer. His uncle held up the
sketch. Gaston could scarcely believe that so strong
and life-like a thing were possible in the time. It had
force and imagination. He left his uncle with a nod,
rode quietly through the park, into the village, and on
to the moor. At the top he turned and looked down.
The perfectness of the landscape struck him ; it was
as if the picture had all grown there — not a suburban
villa, not a modern cottage, not one tall chimney of a
manufactory, but just the sweet common life. The
noises of the village were soothing, the soft smell of
the woodland came over. He watched a cart go by,
idly heavily clacking.

As he looked, it came to him : was his uncle right
after all ? Was he out of place here? He was not a
part of this, though he had adapted himself and had
learned many fine social ways. He knew that he lived
not exactly as though born here and grown up with

90

THE TRESPASSER.

it all. But it was also true that he had a native sense
of courtesy which people called distinguished. There
was ever a kind of mannered deliberation in his bear-
ing— a part of his dramatic temper, and because his
father had taught him dignity where there were no
social functions for its use. His manner had, there-
fore, a carefulness which in him was elegant artifice.

It could not be complained that he did not act
after the fashion of gentle people when with them.
But it was equally true that he did many things which
the friends of his family could not and would not have
done. Bor instance, none would have pitched a tent
in the grounds, slept in it, read in it, and lived in it —
when it did not rain. Probably no one of them would
have, at individual expense, sent the wife of the village
policeman to a hospital in London, to be cured — or to
die — of cancer. Hone would have troubled to insist
that a certain stagnant pool in the village be filled up.
Hor would one have suddenly risen in court and have
acted as counsel for a gipsy ! At the same time, all
were too well-bred to think that Gaston did this be-
cause the gipsy had a daughter with him, a girl of
strong, wild beauty, with a look of superiority over her
position.

He thought of all the circumstances now.

It was very many months ago. The man had been
accused of stealing and assault, but the evidence was

WHICH TELLS OF STRANGE ENCOUNTERS. 91

unconvincing to Gaston. The feeling in court was
against the gipsy. Fearing a verdict against him,
Gaston rose and cross-examined the witnesses, and so
adroitly bewildered both them and the justices who sat
with his grandfather on the case, that, at last, he se-
cured the man’s freedom. The girl was French, and
knew English imperfectly. Gaston had her sworn,
and made the most of her evidence. Then, learning
that an assault had been made on the gipsy’s van by
some lads who worked at mills in a neighbouring town,
he pushed for their arrest, and himself made up the
loss to the gipsy.

It is possible that there was in the mind of the girl
what some common people thought : that the thing was
done for her favour ; for she viewed it half gratefully,
half frowningly, till, on the village green, Gaston asked
her father what he wished to do — push on or remain
to act against the lads.

The gipsy, angry as he was, wished to move on.
Gaston lifted his hat to the girl and bade her good-
bye. Then she saw that his motives had been wholly
unselfish — even quixotic, as it appeared to her, —
silly, she would have called it, if silliness had not
seemed unlikely in him. She had never met a
man like him before. She ran her fingers through
her golden-brown hair nervously, caught at a fly-
ing bit of old ribbon at her waist, and said in
French :

92

THE TRESPASSER.

“ He is honest altogether, sir. He did not steal,
and he was not there when it happened.”

“ Oh, I know that, my girl. That is why I did
it!”

She looked at him keenly. Her eyes ran up and
down his figure, then met his curiously. Their looks
swam for a moment. Something thrilled in them both.
The girl took a step nearer.

“ You are as much a Romany here as I am,” she
said, touching her bosom with a quick gesture. “ You
do not belong ; you are too good for it. How do I
know ? I do not know ; I feel. I will tell your for-
tune,” she suddenly added, reaching for his hand. “ I
have only known three that I could do it with honestly
and truly, and you are one. It is no lie. There is
something in it. My mother had it ; but it’s all sham
mostly.”

Then, under a tree on the green, he indifferent to
village gossip, she took his hand and told him — not of
his fortune alone. In half-coherent fashion she told
him of the past — of his life in the North. She then
spoke of his future. She told him of a woman, of
another, and another still ; of an accident at sea, and
of a quarrel ; then, with a low, wild laugh, she stopped,
let go his hand, and would say no more. But her face
was all flushed, and her eyes like burning beads. Her
father stood near, listening. Now he took her by the

arm.

WHICH TELLS OF STRANGE ENCOUNTERS. 93

“ Here, Andree, that’s enough,” he said, with rough
kindness ; “ it’s no good for you or him.”

He turned to Gaston, and said in English :

“ She’s sing’lar, like her mother afore her. But
she’s straight ! ”

Gaston lit a cigar.

“ Of course.” lie looked kindly at the girl. “ You
are a weird sort, Andree, and perhaps you are right
that I’m a Romany too ; but I don’t know where it
begins and where it ends. — You are not English gip-
sies ? ” he added, to the father.

“ I lived in England when I was young. Her
mother was a Breton — not a Romany. We’re on the
way to France now. She wants to see where her
mother was born. She’s got the Breton lingo, and
she knows some English ; but she speaks French
mostly.”

“ Well, well,” rejoined Gaston ; “ take care of your-
self, and good luck to you. Good-bye — good-bye, An-
dree.”

He put his hand in his pocket to give her some
money, but changed his mind. Her eye stopped him.
He shook hands with the man, then turned to her
again. Her eyes were on him — hot, shining. He felt
his blood throb, but he returned the look with good-
natured nonchalance, shook her hand, raised his hat,
and walked away, thinking what a fine, handsome
creature she was. Presently he said : “ Poor girl !

u

THE TRESPASSER.

she’ll look at some fellow like that one day, with
tragedy the end thereof ! ”

He then fell to wondering about her almost un-
canny divination. He knew that all his life he him-
self had had strange memories, as well as certain
peculiar powers which had put the honest phenomena
and the trickery of the Medicine Men in the shade.
He had influenced people by the sheer force of pres-
ence. As he walked on, he came to a group of trees
in the middle of the common. He paused for a mo-
ment, and looked back. The gipsy’s van was moving
away, and in the doorway stood the girl, her hand
over her eyes, looking towards him. He could see
the raw colour of her scarf. “ She’ll make wild trou-
ble ! ” he said to himself.

As Gaston thought of this event, he moved his
horse slowly towards a combe, and looked out over a
noble expanse — valley, field, stream, and church-spire.
As he gazed, he saw seated at some distance a girl
reading. Hot far from her were two boys climbing
up and down the combe. He watched them. Pres-
ently he saw one boy creep along a shelf of rock
where the combe broke into a quarry, let himself
drop upon another shelf below, and then perch upon
an overhanging ledge. He presently saw that the lad
was now afraid to return. He heard the other lad
cry out, saw the girl start up, and run forward, look

WHICH TELLS OF STRANGE ENCOUNTERS. 95

over the edge of the combe, and then make as if to .
go down. He set his horse to the gallop, and called
out. The girl saw him, and paused. In two minutes
he was off his horse and beside her.

It was Alice Wingfield. She had brought out
three hoys, who had come with her from London,
where she had spent most of the year nursing their
sick mother, her relative.

“I’ll have him up in a minute,” he said, as he
led Saracen to a sapling near. “ Don’t go near the
horse.”

He swung himself down from ledge to ledge, and
soon was beside the hoy. In another moment he had
the youngster on his back, came slowly up, and the
adventurer was safe.

“ Silly Walter,” the girl said, “ to frighten your-
self and give Mr. Belward trouble ! ”

“ I didn’t think I’d be afraid,” protested the lad ;

“ but when I looked over the ledge my head went
round, and I felt sick like with the channel.”

Gaston had seen Alice Wingfield several times at
church and in the village, and once when, with Lady
Belward, he had returned the archdeacon’s call ; but
she had been away most of the time since his arrival.
She had impressed him as a gentle, wise, elderly little
creature, who appeared to live for others, and chiefly
for her grandfather. She was not unusually pretty,
nor yet young, — quite as old as himself, — and yet he

96

TIIE TRESPASSER.

. wondered what it was that made her so interesting.
He decided that it was the honesty of her nature, her
beautiful thoroughness; and then he thought little
more about her. But now he dropped into quiet,
natural talk with her, as if they had known each
other for years. But most women found that they
dropped quickly into easy talk with him. That was
because he had not learned the small gossip which
varies little with a thousand people in the same cir-
cumstances. But he had a naive fresh sense, every-
thing interested him, and he said what he thought
with taste and tact, sometimes with wit, and always in
that cheerful contemplative mood which influences
women. Some of his sayings were so startling and
heretical that they had gone the rounds, and cer-
tain crisp words out of the argot of the North
were used by women who wished to be chic and
amusing.

Not quite certain why he stayed, but talking on
reflectively, Gaston at last said :

“You will be coming to us to-night, of course?
We are having a barbecue of some kind.”

“ Yes, I hope so; though my grandfather does not
much care to have me go.”

“ I suppose it is dull for him.”

“ Oh, I am not sure it is that.”

“ No ? What then ? ”

She shook her head.

WHICH TELLS OF STRANGE ENCOUNTERS. 97

“ The affair is in your honour, Mr. Bel ward, isn’t
it?”

“ Does that answer my question ? ” he asked gen-
ially.

She blushed.

“ Oh, no, no ! That is not what I meant.”

“ I was unfair. Yes, I believe the matter does
take that colour; though why, I don’t know.”

• She looked at him with simple earnestness.

“You ought to be proud of it; and you ought to
be glad of such a high position where you can do so
much good, if you will.”

He smiled, and ran his hand down his horse’s leg
musingly before he replied :

“ I’ve^not thought much of doing good, I tell you
frankly. I wasn’t brought up to think about it ; I
don’t know that I ever did any good in my life. I
supposed it was only missionaries and women who did
that sort of thing.”

“ Oh, you wrong yourself. You have done good
in this village. Why, we all have talked of it ; and
though it wasn’t done in the usual way — rather ir-
regularly— still it was doing good.”

He looked down at her astonished.

“ Well, here’s a pretty libel ! Doing good ‘ irregu-
larly ’ ! Why, where have I done good at all ? ”

She ran over the names of several sick people in
the village whose bills he had paid, the personal help

98

THE TRESPASSER.

and interest he had given to many, and, last of all,
she mentioned the case of the village postmaster.

Since Gaston had come, postmasters had been
changed. The little pale-faced man who had first
held the position disappeared one night, and in
another twenty-four hours a new one was in his place.
Many stories had gone about. It was rumoured that
the little man was short in his accounts, and had been
got out of the way by Gaston Belward. Archdeacon
Yarcoe knew the truth, and had said that Gaston’s
sin was not unpardonable, in spite of a few squires
and their dames who declared it was shocking that a
man should have such loose ideas, that no good could
come to the county from it, and that he would put
nonsense into the heads of the common people. Alice
Wingfield was now to hear Gaston’s view of the
matter.

“So that’s it, eh? Live and let live is doing
good ? In that case it is easy to be a saint. What
else could a man do? You say that I am generous —
How ? What have I spent out of my income on these
little things? My income! — How did I get it? I
didn’t earn it ; neither did my father. Hot a stroke
have I done for it. I sit high and dry there in the
Court, they sit low there in the village ; and you know
how they live. Well, I give away a little money which
these people and their fathers earned for my father
and me ; and for that you say I am doing good, and

WHICH TELLS OF STRANGE ENCOUNTERS. 99

some other people say I am doing harm — •* dangerous
charity,’ and all that! I say that the little I have
done is what is always done where man is most
primitive, by people who never heard ‘ doing good ’
preached.”

“We must have names for things, you know,”
she said.

“ I suppose so, where morality and humanity have
to be taught as Christian duty, and not as common
manhood.”

“ Tell me,” she presently said, “ about Sproule, the
postmaster.”

“ Oh, that? Well, I will. The first time I entered
the post-office I saw there was something on the man’s
mind. A youth of twenty-three oughtn’t to look
as he did — married only a year or two also, with a
pretty wife and child. I used to talk to them a good
deal, and one day I said to him, 4 You look seedy ;
what’s the matter ? ’ He flushed, and got nervous. I
made up my mind it was money. If I had been here
longer, I should have taken him aside and talked to
him like a father. As it was, things slid along. I
was up in town, and here and there. One evening as
I came back from town I saw a nasty-looking Jew
arrive. The little postmaster met him, and they went
away together. He was in the scoundrel’s hands;
had been betting, and had borrowed first from the
Jew, then from the Government. The next evening

100

THE TRESPASSER.

I was just starting down to have a talk with him,
when an official came to my grandfather to swear out
a warrant. I lost no time ; got my horse and trap,
went down to the office, gave the hoy three minutes
to tell me the truth, and then I sent him away.
I fixed it up with the authorities, and the wife
and child follow the youth to America next week.
That’s all.”

“ He deserved to get free, then ? ”

“ He deserved to he punished, but not as he would
have been. There wTasn’t really a vicious spot in the
man. And the wife and child! — What was a little
justice to the possible happiness of those three ? Dis-
cretion is a part of justice, and I used it, as it is used
every day in business and judicial life, only we don’t
see it. When it gets public, why, someone gets blamed.
In this case I was the target ; but I don’t mind in the
least — not in the least. . . . Do you think me very
startling or lawless ? ”

“ Never lawless ; but one could not be quite sure
what you would do in any particular case.” She
looked up at him admiringly.

They had not noticed the approach of Archdeacon
t Yarcoe till he was very near them. His face was
troubled. He had seen how earnest was their conver-
sation, and for some reason it made him uneasy. The
girl saw him first, and ran to meet him. He saw her
bright delighted look, and he sighed involuntarily.

WHICH TELLS OF STRANGE ENCOUNTERS. 101

“ Something has worried you,” she said caress-
ingly.

Then she told him of the accident, and they all
turned and went back towards the Court, Gaston walk-
ing his horse. Near the church they met Sir William
and Lady Belward. There were salutations, and,
presently Gaston slowly followed his grandfather and
grandmother into the courtyard.

Sir William, looking hack, said to his wife :

“ Do you think that Gaston should be told ? ”

“ Oh, no, no ! there is no danger. Gaston, my dear,
shall marry Delia Gasgoyne.”

“ Shall marry ? wherefore 4 shall ’ ? Really, I do
not see.”

“ She likes him, she is quite what we would have
her, and he is interested in her. Oh, my dear, I have
seen — I have watched for a year.”

He put his hand on hers.

“ My wife, you are a goodly prophet.”

When Archdeacon Yarcoe entered his study on
returning, he sat down in a chair, and brooded long.

“ She must be told,” he said at last, aloud. “ Yes,
yes, at once. God help us both ! ”

CHAPTER VII.

WHEREIN THE SEAL OF HIS HERITAGE IS SET.

“ Sophie, when you talk with the man, remember
that you are near fifty, and faded. Don’t be senti-
mental.”

So said Mrs. Gasgoyne to Lady Dargan, as they
saw Gaston coming down the ball-room with Captain
Maudsley.

“ Reine, you try one’s patience. People would say
you were not quite disinterested.”

“ You mean Delia ! How, listen. I haven’t any
wish but that Gaston Belward shall see Delia very
seldom indeed. He will inherit the property no
doubt, and Sir William told me that he had settled a
decent fortune on him ; but for Delia — no — no — no !
Strange, isn’t it, when Lady Harriet over there aches
for him, Indian blood and all ? And why ? Because
this is a good property, and the fellow is distinguished
and romantic-looking : but he is impossible — perfectly
impossible ! Every line of his face says shipwreck.”

“ You are not usually so prophetic.”

“ Of course. But I am prophetic now, for Delia

THE SEAL OF HIS HERITAGE IS SET. 103

is more than interested, silly chuck ! Did you ever
read the story of the other Gaston — Sir Gaston —
whom this one resembles? No? Well, you will find
it thinly disguised in The Knight of Five Joys. He
was killed at Naseby, my dear; killed, not by the
enemy, but by a page in Rupert’s cavalry. The page
was a woman ! It’s in this one too. Indian and
French blood is a sad tincture. He is not wicked at
heart, not at all ; but he will do mad things yet, my
dear. For he’ll tire of all this, and then — half-
mourning for someone ! ”

Gaston enjoyed talking with Mrs. Gasgoyne as to
no one else. Other women often flattered him, she
never did. Frankly, crisply, she told him strange
truths, and, without mercy, crumbled his wrong opin-
ions. He had a sense of humour, and he enjoyed her
keen chastening raillery. Besides, her talk was always
an education in the fine lights and shadows of this
social life. He came to her now with a smile, greeted
her heartily, and then turned to Lady Dargan. Cap-
tain Maudsley carried off Mrs. Gasgoyne, and the
two were left together — the second time since the
evening of Gaston’s arrival, so many months before.
Lady Dargan had been abroad, and was just re-
turned.

They talked a little on unimportant things, and
presently Lady Dargan said :

“ Pardon my asking, but will you tell me why you

104 the trespasser.

wore a red ribbon in your button-hole the first night
you came ? ”

He smiled, and then looked at her a little curi-
ously.

“ My luggage had. not come, and I wore an old suit
of my father’s.”

Lady Dargan sighed deeply.

“ The last night he was in England he wore that
coat at dinner,” she murmured.

“ Pardon me, Lady Dargan : you put that ribbon
there?”

“ Yes.”

Her eyes were on him with a candid interest and
regard.

“ I suppose,” he went on, “ that his going was
abrupt to you ? ”

“ Very — very ! ” she answered.

She longed to ask if his father ever mentioned her
name, but she dared not. Besides, as she said to her-
self, to what good now ? But she asked him to tell
her something about his father. He did so quietly,
picking out main incidents, and setting them forth,
as he had the ability, with quiet dramatic strength.
He had just finished when Delia Gasgoyne came up
with Lord Dargan.

Presently Lord Dargan asked Gaston if he
would bring Lady Dargan to the other end of the
room, where Miss Gasgoyne was to join her

THE SEAL OF HIS HERITAGE IS SET. 1Q5

mother. As they went, Lady Dargan said a little
breathlessly :

“ Will you do something for me ? ”

“ I would do much for you,” was his reply, for he
understood !

“If ever you need a friend, if ever you are in
trouble, will you let me know? I wish to take an
interest in you. Promise me.”

“ I cannot promise, Lady Dargan,” he answered,
“ for such trouble as I have had before I have had to
bear alone, and the habit is fixed, I fear. Still, I am
grateful to you just the same, and I shall never forget
it. But will you tell me why people regard me from
so tragical a standpoint? ”

“Do they?”

“Well, there’s yourself, and there’s Mrs. Gas-
goyne, and there’s my uncle Ian.”

“ Perhaps we think you may have trouble because
of your uncle Ian.”

Gaston shook his head enigmatically, and then
said ironically :

“ As they would put it in the North, Lady Dargan,
He’ll cut no figure in that matter. I remember for
two ! ”

“ That is right — that is right. Always think that
Ian Bel ward is bad — bad at heart. He is as fascinat-
ing as ”

“ As the Snake?”

106

THE TRESPASSER.

“ — as the Snake, and as cruel ! It is the cruelty
of wicked selfishness. Somehow, I forget that I am
talking to his nephew. But we all know Ian Bel-
ward — at least, all women do.”

“ And at least one man does,” he answered gravely.

The next minute Gaston walked down the room
with Delia Gasgoyne on his arm. The girl delicately
showed her preference, and he was aware of it. It
pleased him — pleased his unconscious egoism. The
early part of his life had been spent among Indian
women, half-breeds, and a few dull French or English
folk, whose chief charm was their interest in that wild,
free life, now so distant. He had met Delia many
times since his coming; and there was that in her
manner, — a fine high-bred quality, a sweet speaking
reserve — which interested him. He saw her as the
best product of this convention.

She was no mere sentimental girl, for she had
known at least six seasons, and had refused at least
six lovers. She had a proud mind, not wide, suited
to her position. Most men had flattered her, had
yielded to her ; this man, either with art or instinc-
tively, mastered her, secured her interest by his person-
ality. Every woman worth the having, down in her
heart, loves to be mastered: it gives her a sense of
security, and she likes to lean; for, strong as she
may be at times, she is often singularly weak. She
knew that her mother deprecated “that Belward

THE SEAL OF HIS HERITAGE IS SET. 107

enigma,” but this only sent her on the dangerous
way.

To-night she questioned him about his life, and
how he should spend the summer. Idling in France,
he said. And she? She was not sure; but she
thought that she also would be idling about France
in her father’s yacht. So they might happen to meet.
Meanwhile? Well, meanwhile, there were people
coming to stay at Peppingham, their home. August
would see that over. Then freedom.

Was it freedom, to get away from all this — from
England and rule and measure? No, she did not
mean quite that. She loved the life with all its
rules ; she could not live without it. She had been
brought up to expect and to do certain things. She
liked her comforts, her luxuries, many pretty things
about her, and days without friction. To travel?
Yes, with all modern comforts, no long stages, a
really good maid, and some fresh interesting
books.

What kind of books? Well, Walter Pater’s es-
says ; “ The Light of Asia ” ; a novel of that wicked
man Thomas Hardy ; and something light — “ The In-
nocents Abroad ” — with, possibly, a struggle through
De Musset, to keep up her French.

It did not seem exciting to Gaston, but it did
sound honest, and it was in the picture. He pre-
ferred George Meredith, and Swinburne, and Dumas,

108

THE TRESPASSER.

and Hugo ; but with her he did also like the whim-
sical Mark Twain.

He thought of the hints that Lady Belward had
often thrown out; of those many talks with Sir Wil-
liam, excellent friends as they were, in which the baro-
net hinted at the security he would feel if there was ,

a second family of Belwards. What if he ? He

smiled strangely, and shrank.

Marriage ? There was the touchstone.

After the dance, when he was taking her to her
mother, he saw a pale intense face looking out to him
from a row of others. He smiled, and the smile that
came in return was unlike any he had ever seen Alice
Wingfield wear. He was puzzled. It flashed to him
strange pathos, affection, and entreaty. He took
Delia Gasgoyne to her mother, talked to Lady Bel-
ward a little, and then went quietly back to where he
had seen Alice. She was gone. Just then some peo-
ple from town came to speak to him, and he was de-
tained. When he was free he searched, but she was
nowhere jto be found. He went to Lady Belward.
Yes, Miss Wingfield had gone. Lady Belward looked
at Gaston anxiously, and asked him why he was
curious.

“Because she’s a lonely-looking little maid,” he
said, “ and I wanted to be kind to her. See didn’t
seem happy a while ago.”

Lady Belward was reassured.

THE SEAL OP HIS HERITAGE IS SET. 1Q9

“ Yes, she is a sweet creature, Gaston,” she said,
and added : “You are a good boy to-night, a very
good host indeed. It is worth the doing,” she went
on, looking out on the guests proudly. “ I did not
think I should ever come to it again with any heart,
but I do it for you gladly. Now, away to your duty,” i
she added, tapping his breast affectionately with her
fan, “ and when everything is done, come and take
me to my boudoir.”

Ian Bel ward passed Gaston as he went. He had
seen the affectionate passages.

“ ‘ For a good boy ! ’ ‘ God bless our Home ! ’ ” he
said, ironically.

Gaston saw the mark of his hand on his uncle’s
chin, and he forbore ironical reply.

“ The home is worth the blessing,” he rejoined
quietly, and passed on.

Three hours later the guests had all gone, and
Lady Bel ward, leaning on her grandson’s arm, went
to her boudoir, while Ian and his father sought the
library. Ian was going next morning. The confer-
ence was not likely to be cheerful.

Inside her boudoir, Lady Belward sank into a large
chair, and let her head fall back and her eyes close.
She motioned Gaston to a seat. Taking one near, he
waited. After a time she opened her eyes and drew
herself up.

“ My dear,” she said, “ I wish to talk with you.”

110

THE TRESPASSER.

“ I shall be very glad ; but isn’t it late ? and aren’t
you tired, grandmother ? ”

“ I shall sleep better after,” she responded, gently.

She then began to review the past ; her own long
unhappiness, Robert’s silence, her uncertainty as to his
fate, and the after hopelessness, made greater by Ian’s
conduct. In low, kind words she spoke of his coming
and the renewal of her hopes, coupled with fear also
that he might not fit in with his new life, and — she
could say it now — do something unbearable. Well, he
had done nothing unworthy of their name ; had acted,
on the whole, sensibly ; and she had not been greatly
surprised at certain little oddnesses, such as the tent
in the grounds, an impossible deer-hunt, and some
unusual village charities and innovations on the estate.
Nor did she object to Brillon, though he had some-
times thrown servants’-hall into disorder, and had
caused the stablemen and the footmen to fight. His
ear-rings and hair were startling, but they were not
important.

Gaston had been admired by the hunting-field, —
of which they were glad, for it was a test of popular-
ity. She saw that most people liked him. Lord Dun-
folly and Admiral Highburn were enthusiastic. For
her own part, she was proud and grateful. She could
enjoy every grain of comfort he gave them ; and she
was thankful to make up to Robert’s son what Robert
himself had lost — poor boy — poor boy !

THE SEAL OF HIS HERITAGE IS SET. m

Her feelings were deep, strong, and sincere. Her
grandson had come, strong, individual, considerate,
and had moved the tender courses of her nature. At
this moment Gaston had his first deep feeling of
responsibility.

“ My dear,” she said at last, “ people in our position
have important duties. Here is a large estate. Am I
not clear? You will never he quite part of this life
till you bring a wife here. That will give you a sense
of responsibility. You will wake up to many things
then. Will you not marry? There is Delia Gasgoyne.
Your grandfather and I would be so glad ! She is
worthy in every way, and she likes you. She is a good
girl. She has never frittered her heart away; and
she would make you proud of her.”

She reached out an anxious hand, and touched his
shoulder. His eyes were playing with the pattern of
the carpet ; but he slowly raised them to hers, and
looked for a moment without speaking. Suddenly, in
spite of himself, he laughed — laughed outright, but
not loudly.

Marriage ? Yes, here was the touchstone. Marry
a girl whose family had been notable for hundreds of
years ? For the moment he did not remember his own
family. This was one of the times when he was only
conscious that he had savage blood, together with a
strain of New W orld French, and that his life had mostly
been a range of adventure and common toil. This

112

THE TRESPASSER.

new position was his right, but there were times when
it seemed to him that he was an impostor; others,
when he felt himself master of it all, when he even
had a sense of superiority, — why he could not tell;
but life in this old land of tradition and history had
not its due picturesqueness. To his grandmother’s
proposal there shot up in him the thought that for
him this was absurd. He to pace the world beside
this fine queenly creature, — Delia Gasgoyne — carrying
on the traditions of the Belwards ! Was it, was it
possible ?

“ Pardon me,” he said at last gently, as he saw
Lady Belward shrink and then look curiously at him,
“ something struck me, and I couldn’t help it ! ”

“ Was what I said at all ludicrous?”

“ Oh no ; you said what was natural for you to say,
and I thought what was natural for me to think, at
first blush.”

“ There is something wrong,” she urged fearfully.
“ Is there any reason why you cannot marry ? Gas-
ton,”— she trembled towards him, — “you have not
deceived us — you are not married ? ”

“ My wife is dead, as I told you,” he answered
gravely, musingly.

“ Tell me : there is no woman who has a claim on
you?”

“ None that I know of— not one ! My follies have
not run that way.”

THE SEAL OF HIS HERITAGE IS SET. H3

“ Thank God ! Then there is no reason why you
should not marry. Oh, when I look at you I am
proud, I am glad that I live ! You bring my youth,
my son back ; and I long for a time when I may clasp
your child in my arms, and know that Robert’s heri-
tage will go on and on, and that there will be made
up to him, somehow, all that he lost. Listen : I am
an old, crippled, suffering woman ; I shall soon have
done with all this coming and going, and I speak to
you out of the wisdom of sorrow. Had Robert mar-
ried, all would have gone well. He did not : he got
into trouble, then came Ian’s hand in it all ; and you
know the end. I fear for you, I do indeed. You will
have sore temptations. Marry — marry soon, and make
us happy.”

He was quiet enough now. He had seen the
grotesque image, now he was facing the thing be-
hind it.

“Would it please you so very much?” he said,
resting a hand gently on hers.

“ I wish to see a child of yours in my arms,
dear.”

“ And the woman you have chosen is Delia Gas-
goyne?”

“ The choice is for you ; but you seem to like each
other, and we care for her.”

He sat thinking for a time, then he got up, and
said slowly :

114

THE TRESPASSER.

“ It shall be so, if Miss Gasgoyne will have me.
And I hope it may turn out as you wish.”

Then he stooped and kissed her on the cheek.
The proud woman, who had unbent little in her life-
time, whose eyes had looked out so coldly on the
world, who felt for her son Ian an almost impossible
aversion, drew down his head and kissed it.

“ Indian and all ? ” he asked, with a quaint bitter-
ness.

“ Everything, my dear ! ” she answered. “ God
bless you ! Good-night ! ”

A few moments after, Gaston went to the library.
He heard the voices of Sir William and his uncle.
He knocked and entered. Ian, with exaggerated
courtesy, rose. Gaston, with easy coolness, begged
him to sit, lit a cigar, and himself sat.

“ My father has been feeding me with raw truths,
Cadet,” said his uncle ; “ and I’ve been eating them
unseasoned. We have not been, nor are likely to be,
a happy family, unless in your saturnian reign we
learn to say, Pax vobiscum — do you know Latin?
For I’m told the money-bags and the stately pile are
for you. You are to beget children before the Lord,
and sit in the seat of Justice : ’tis for me to confer
honour on you all by my genius ! ”

Gaston sat very still, and, when the speech was
ended, said tentatively :

“ Why rob yourself ? ”

THE SEAL OF HIS HERITAGE IS SET. 115

“ In honouring you all ? ”

u No, sir ; in not yourself having ‘ a saturnian
reign ’ ! ”

“ You are generous.”

“ No : I came here to ask for a home, for what
was mine through my father. I ask, and want,
nothing more — not even to beget children before the
Lord ! ”

“ How mellow the tongue ! Well, Cadet, I am not
going to quarrel. Here we are with my father. See,
I am willing to be friends. But you mustn’t expect
that I will not chasten your proud spirit now and
then. That you need it, this morning bears witness.”

Sir William glanced from one to the other curious-
ly. He was cold and calm, and looked worn. He had
had a trying half-hour with his son, and it had told
on him.

Gaston at once said to his grandfather :

“ Of this morning, sir, I will tell you. I ”

Ian interrupted him.

“ No, no ; that is between us. Let us not worry
my father.”

Sir William smiled ironically.

“ Your solicitude is refreshing, Ian.”

“ Late fruit is the sweetest, sir.”

Presently Sir William asked Gaston the result of
the talk with Lady Bel ward. Gaston frankly said
that he was ready to do as they wished. Sir William

116

THE TRESPASSER.

then said they had chosen this time because Ian was
there, and it was better to have all open and under-
stood.

Ian laughed.

“Taming the barbarian! How seriously you all
take it ! Iam the jester for the King. In the days
of the flood I’ll bring the olive leaf. You are all in
the wash of sentiment : you’ll come to the wicked un-
cle one day for common sense. But, never mind, Ca-
det ; we are to be friends. Yes, really. I do not fear
for my heritage, and you’ll need a helping hand one
of these days. Besides, you are an interesting fellow.
So, if you will put up with my acid tongue, there’s no
reason why we shouldn’t hit it ofl.”

To Sir William’s great astonishment, Ian held out
his hand with a genial smile, which was tolerably hon-
est, for his indulgent nature was capable of as great
geniality as incapable of high moral conceptions.
Then, he had before his eye, “ Monmouth ” and “ The
King of Ys.”

Gaston took his hand, and said :

“ I have no wish to be an enemy.”

Sir William rose, looking at them both. He could
not understand Ian’s attitude, and he distrusted.
Yet peace w^as better than war. Ian’s truce was also
based on a belief that Gaston would make skittles of
things.

A little while afterwards Gaston sat in his room,

THE SEAL OP HIS HERITAGE IS SET. 117

turning over events in liis mind. Time and again his
thoughts returned to the one thing— marriage. That
marriage with his Esquimaux wife had been in one
sense none at all, for the end was sure from the begin-
ning. It was in keeping with his youth, the circum-
stances, the life, it had no responsibilities. But this ?
To become an integral part of the life — the English
country gentleman; to be reduced, diluted, to the
needs of the convention, and no more? Let him
think of the details : — a justice of the peace ; to sit on
a board of directors; to be, perhaps, Master of the
Hounds; to unite with the Bishop in restoring the
cathedral ; to make an address at the annual flower-
show. His wife to open bazaars, give tennis-parties,
and be patron to the clergy ; himself at last, no doubt,
to go into Parliament ; to feel the petty, or serious, re-
sponsibilities of a husband and a landlord. Monot-
ony, extreme decorum, civility to the world ; endless
politeness to his wife; with boys at Eton and girls
somewhere else ; — and the kind of man he must be to
do his duty in all and to all !

It seemed impossible. He rose and paced the
floor. Never till this moment had the full picture of
his new life come close. He felt stifled. He put on
a cap, and, descending the stairs, went out into the
courtyard and walked about, the cool air refreshing
him. Gradually there settled upon him a stoic ac-
ceptance of the conditions. But would it last ? •

118

THE TRESPASSER.

He stood still and looked at the pile of buildings
before him ; then he turned towards the little church
close by, whose spire and roof could be seen above the
wall. He waved his hand, as when within it on the
day of his coming, and said with irony : “ Now for
the marriage-linen, Sir Gaston ! ”

He heard a low knocking at the gate. He listened.
Yes, there was no mistake. He went to it, and asked
quietly :

“ Who is there ? ”

There was no reply. Still the knocking went on.
He quietly opened the gate, and threw it back. A
figure in white stepped through and slowly passed
him. It was Alice Wingfield. He spoke to her. She
did not answer. He went close to her and saw that
she was asleep !

She was making for the entrance-door. He took
her hand gently, and led her into a side- door, and on
into the ball-room. She moved towards a window
through which the moonlight streamed, and sat on a
cushioned bench beneath it. It was the spot where
he had seen her at the dance. She leaned forward,
looking into space, as she did at him then. He moved
and got in her line of vision.

The picture was weird. She wore a soft white
chamber-gown, her hair hung loose on her shoulders,
her pale face cowled in it. The look was inexpres-
sibly sad. Over her fell dim, coloured lights from the

V THE SEAL OF HIS HERITAGE IS SET. HQ

stained-glass windows; and shadowy ancestors looked
silently down from the armour-hung walls.

To Gaston, collected as he was, it gave an ominous
feeling. Why did she come here even in her sleep ?
What did that look mean ? He gazed intently into
her eyes.

All at once her voice came low and broken, and a
sob followed the words :

“ Gaston, my brother, my brother ! ”

He stood for a moment stunned, gazing helplessly
at her passive figure.

“ Gaston, my brother ! ” he repeated to himself.

Then the painful matter dawned upon him. This
girl, the granddaughter of the rector of the parish,
was his. father’s daughter — his own sister! He had a
sudden spring of new affection — unfelt for those other
relations, his by the rights of the law and the gospel.
The pathos of the thing caught him in the throat —
for her how pitiful, how unhappy ! He was sure that,
somehow, she had only come to know of it since the
afternoon. Then there had been so different a look
in her face !

One thing was clear : he had no right to this se-
cret, and it must be for now as if it had never been.
He came to her, and took her hand. She rose. He
led her from the room, out into the courtyard, and
from there through the gate into the road.

All was still. They passed over to the rectory.

120

THE TRESPASSER.

Just inside the gate, Gaston saw a figure issue from
the house, and come quickly towards them. It was
the rector, excited, anxious.

Gaston motioned silence, and pointed to her.
Then he briefly whispered how she had come. The
clergyman said that he had felt uneasy about her, had
gone to her room, and was just issuing in search of
her. Gaston resigned her, softly advised not waking
her, and bade the clergyman good -night.

But presently he turned, touched the arm of the
old man, and said meaningly :

“ I know.”

The rector’s voice shook as he replied :

“ You have not spoken to her ? ”

“No.”

“You will not speak of it?”

“No.”

“Unless I should die, and she should wish it?”

“ Always as she wishes.”

They parted, and Gaston returned to the Court.

CHAPTER VIII.

HE ANSWERS AH AWKWARD QUESTION.

The next morning Brillon brought a note from
Ian Belward, which said that he was starting, and
asked Gaston to be sure and come to Paris. The note
was carelessly friendly. After reading it, he lay think-
ing. Presently he chanced to see Jacques look in-
tently at him.

“ Well, Brillon, what is it? ” he asked genially.

Jacques had come on better than Gaston had
hoped for, but the light play of his nature was gone —
he was grave, almost melancholy ; and, in his way, as
notable as his master. Their life in London had
changed him much. A valet in St. James’ Street was
not a hunting comrade on the Coppermine River.
Often when Jacques was left alone he stood at the
window looking out on the gay traffic, scarcely stir-
ring; his eyes slow, brooding. Occasionally, standing
so, he would make the sacred gesture. One who heard
him swear now and then, in a calm, deliberate way —
at the cook and the porter, — would have thought the
matters in strange contrast. But his religion was a
central habit, followed as mechanically as his appetite

122

THE TRESPASSER.

or the folding of his master’s clothes. Besides, like
most woodsmen, he was superstitious. Gaston was
kind with him, keeping, however, a firm hand till his
manner had become informed by the new duties.
Jacques’ greatest pleasure was his early morning visits
to the stables. Here were Saracen and Jim the bron-
cho— sleek, savage, playful. But he touched the high-
est point of his London experience when they rode in
the Park.

In this Gaston remained singular. He rode al-
ways with Jacques. Perhaps he wished to preserve
one possible relic of the old life, perhaps he liked this
touch of drama ; or both. It created notice, criticism,
but he was superior to that. Time and again people
asked him to ride, but he always pleaded another en-
gagement. He would then be seen with J acques plus
Jacques’ ear-rings and the wonderful hair, riding
grandly in the Bow. Jacques’ eyes sparkled and a
snatch of song came to his lips at these times.

Ho figures in the Park were so striking. There
was nothing bizarre, but Gaston had a distinguished
look, and women who had felt his hand at their waists
in the dance the night before, now knew him, some-
how, at a grave distance. Though Gaston did not say
it to himself, these were the hours when he really was
with the old life — lived it again — prairie, savannah,
ice-plain, alkali desert. When, dismounting, the
horses were taken and they went up the stairs, Gaston

HE ANSWERS AN AWKWARD QUESTION. 123

would softly lay his whip across Jacques’ shoulders
without speaking. This was their only ritual of cam-
araderie, and neglect of it would have fretted the half-
breed. Never had man such a servant. No matter
at what hour Gaston returned, he found Jacques wait-
ing ; and when he woke he found him ready, as now,
on this morning, after a strange night.

“ What is it, J acques ? ” he repeated.

The old name! Jacques shivered a little with
pleasure. Presently he broke out with :

“ Monsieur, when do we go back ? ”

“ Go back where ? ”

“ To the North, monsieur.”

“ What’s in your noddle now, Brillon ? ”

The impatient return to “Brillon” cut Jacques
like a whip.

“ Monsieur,” he suddenly said, his face glowing,
his hands opening nervously, “ we have eat, we have
drunk, we have had the dance and the great music
here : Is it enough ? Sometimes as you sleep you
call out, and you toss to the strokes of the tower-
clock. When we lie on the Plains of Yath from sun-
set to sunrise, you never stir then. You remember
when we sleep on the ledge of the Yoshti mountain —
so narrow that we were tied together? Well, we were
as babes in blankets. In the Prairie of the Ten Stars
your fingers were on the trigger firm as a bolt ; here I
have seen them shake with the coffee-cup. Monsieur,

124

THE TRESPASSER.

you have seen : Is it enough ? You have lived here :
Is it like the old lodge and the long trail ? ”

Gaston sat up in bed, looked in the mirror op-
posite, ran his fingers through his hair, regarded his
hands, turning them over, and then, with sharp im-
patience, said :

“ Go to hell ! ”

The little man’s face flushed to his hair; he
sucked in the air with a gasp. Without a word, he
went to the dressing-table, poured out the shaving-
water, threw a towel over his arm, and turned to come
to the bed ; hut, all at once, he sidled hack, put down
the water, and furtively drew a sleeve across his eyes.

Gaston saw, and something suddenly burned in
him. He dropped his eyes, slid out of bed, into his
dressing-gown, and sat down.

Jacques made ready. He was not prepared to
have Gaston catch him by the shoulders with a
nervous grip, search his eyes, and say :

“ You damned little fool ! I’m not worth it ! ”

Jacques’ face shone.

“ Every great man has his fool — alors ! ” was the
happy reply.

“ Jacques,” Gaston presently said, “ what’s on your
mind?”

“ I saw — last night, monsieur,” he said.

“ You saw what?”

“ I saw you in the courtyard with the lady.”

HE ANSWERS AN AWKWARD QUESTION. 125

Gaston was now very grave.

“ Did you recognise her ? ”

“ No : she moved all as a spirit.”

“Jacques, that matter is between you and me. I’m

going to tell you, though, two things ; and where’s

your string of beads ? ” *

J acques drew out his rosary.

“That’s all right. Mum as Manitou! She was
asleep ; she is my sister. And that is all, till there’s
need for you to know more ! ”

In this new confidence Jacques was content. The
life was a gilded mess, but he could endure it now.

Three days passed. During that time Gaston was
up to town twice ; lunched at Lady Dargan’s, and dined
at Lord D unfolly’s. For his grandfather, who was in-
disposed, he was induced to preside at a political meet-
ing in the interest of a wealthy local brewer, who con-
fidently expected the seat, and, through gifts to the
party, a knighthood. Before the meeting, in the gush
of — as he put it — “kindred aims,” he laid a finger
familiarly in Gaston’s button-hole. Jacques, who was
present, smiled, for he knew every change in his mas-
ter’s face, and he saw a glitter in his eye. He remem-
bered when they two were in trouble with a gang of
river-drivers, and one did this same thing rudely; how ,
Gaston looked down, and said, with a devilish soft-
ness : “ Take it away ! ” And immediately after the
man did so.

126

THE TRESPASSER.

Mr. Sylvester Gregory Babbs, in a similar position,
heard a voice say down at him, with a curious oblique-
ness :

“ If you please ! ”

The keenest edge of it was lost on the flaring
brewer, but his fingers dropped, and he twisted his
heavy watch-chain uneasily. The meeting began. Gas-
ton in a few formal words, unconventional in idea, in-
troduced Mr. Babbs as “ a gentleman whose name was
a household word in the county, who would carry into
Parliament the civic responsibility shown in his private
life, who would render his party a support likely to
fulfil its purpose.”

When he sat down, Captain Maudsley said :

“ That’s a trifle vague, Bel ward.”

“ How can one treat him with importance ? ”

“ He’s the sort that makes a noise one way or
another.”

“ Yes. Obituary : ‘ At his residence in Babbslow
Square, yesterday, Sir S. G. Babbs, M. P., member of
the London County Council. Sir S. G. Babbs, it will
be remembered, gave £100,000 to build a home for the
propagation of Vice, and ”

“ That’s droll ! ”

“ Why not Vice? ’Twould be just the same in his
mind. He doesn’t give from a sense of moral duty.
Not he; he’s a bungowawen ! ”

“ What is that?”

HE ANSWERS AN AWKWARD QUESTION. 127

“ That’s Indian. You buy a lot of Indian or half-
breed loafers with beaver-skins and rum, go to the
Mount of the Burning Arrows, and these fellows dance
round you and call you one of the lost race, the Mighty
Men of the Kimash Hills. And they’ll do that while
the rum lasts. Meanwhile you get to think yourself
a devil of a swell — you and the gods ! . . . And
now we had better listen to this bungowawen , hadn’t
we?”

The room was full, and on the platform were gen-
tlemen come to support Sir William Bel ward. They
were interested to see how Gaston would carry it off.

Mr. Babbs’ speech was like a thousand others by
the same kind of man. More speeches — some oppos-
ing— followed, and at last came the chairman to
close the meeting. He addressed himself chiefly to a
bunch of farmers, artisans, and labouring-men near.
After some good-natured raillery at political meetings
in general, the bigotry of party, the difficulty in get-
ting the wheat from the chaff, and some incisive
thrusts at those who promised the moon and gave a
green cheese, who spent their time in berating their
opponents, he said :

“ There’s a game that sailors play on board ship —
men-o’-war and sailing-ships mostly. I never could
quite understand it, nor could any officers ever tell
me — the fo’castle for the men and the quarter-deck
for the officers, and what’s English to one is Greek to

128

THE TRESPASSER.

the other ! W ell, this was all I could see in the game.
They sat about, sometimes talking, sometimes not.
All at once a chap would rise and say, ‘ Allow me to
speak, me noble lord,’ and follow this by hitting some
one of the party wherever the blow got in easiest — on
the head, anywhere ! [Laughter.] Then he would
sit down seriously, and someone else spoke to his
noble lordship. Nobody got angry at the knocks, and
Heaven only knows what it was all about. That is
much the way with politics, when it is played fair.
But here is what I want particularly to say: We are
not all born the same, nor can we live the same. One
man is born a brute, and another a good sort ; one a
liar, and one an honest man ; one has brains, and the
other hasn’t. Now, I’ve lived where, as they say, one
man is as good as another. But he isn’t, there or
here. A weak man can’t run with a strong. We
have heard to-night a lot of talk for something and
against something. It is over. Are you sure you
have got what was meant clear in your mind?
[Laughter, and 4 Blow'ed if we ’ave ! ’] Very well ; do
not worry about that. We have been playing a game
of, 4 Allow me to speak, me noble lord ! ’ And who
is going to help you to get the most out of your coun-
try and your life isn’t easy to know. But we can get
hold of a few clear ideas, and measure things against
them. I know and have talked with a good many of
you here [‘ That’s so ! That’s so ! ’], and you know my

HE ANSWERS AN AWKWARD QUESTION. 1^9

ideas pretty well — that they are honest at least, and
that I have seen the countries where freedom is ‘ on
the job,’ as they say. Now, don’t put your faith in
men and in a party that cry, ‘ We will make all things
new,’ to the tune of, ‘We are a band of brothers.’
Trust in one that says, ‘You cannot undo the cen-
turies. Take off the roof, remove a wall, let in the
air, throw out a wing, but leave the old foundations.’
And that is the real difference between the other
party and mine; and these political games of ours
come to that chiefly.”

Presently he called for the hands of the meeting.
They were given for Mr. Babbs.

Suddenly a man’s strong, arid voice came from the
crowd :

“ ‘ Allow me to speak, me noble lord ! ’ [Great
laughter. Then a pause.] Where’s my old chum,
Jock Lawson ? ”

The audience stilled. Gaston’s face went grave.
He replied, in a firm, clear voice:

“ In Heaven, my man. You’ll never see him
more ! ”

There was silence for a moment, a murmur, then
a faint burst of applause. Presently John Cawley,
the landlord of “ The Whisk o’ Barley,” made
towards Gaston. Gaston greeted him, and inquired
after his wife. He was told that she was very ill, and
had sent her husband to beg Gaston to come. Gas-

130

THE TRESPASSER.

ton had dreaded this hour, though he knew it would
come one day. A woman on a deathbed has a right
to ask for and get the truth. He had forborne telling
her of her son ; and she, whenever she had seen him,
had contented herself with asking general questions,
dreading in her heart that Jock had died a dreadful
or shameful death, or else this gentleman would, vol-
untarily, say more. But, herself on her way out of
the world, as she feared, wished the truth, whatever
it might he.

Gaston told Cawley that he would drive over at
once, and then asked who it was had called out at
him. A drunken, poaching fellow, he was told, who
in all the years since Jock had gone, had never passed
the inn without stopping to say, “Where’s my old
chum, Jock Lawson?” In the past he and Jock had
been in more than one scrape together. He had
learned from Mrs. Cawley that Gaston had known
Jock in Canada.

When Cawley had gone, Gaston turned to the
other gentlemen present.

“An original speech, upon my word, Belward!”
said Captain Maudslev.

Mr. Warren Gasgoyne came.

“ You are expected to lunch or something to-mor-
row, Belward, you remember ? Devil of a speech that !
But, if you will ‘ allow me to speak, me noble lord,’
you are the rankest Conservative of us all.”

HE ANSWERS AN AWKWARD QUESTION. 131

“ Don’t you know that the easiest constitutional
step is from a republic to an autocracy, and vice
versd ? ”

“ I don’t know it, and I don’t know how you
do it.”

“ Do what?”

“ Make them think as you do.”

He waved his hand to the departing crowd.

“ I don’t. I try to think as they do. I am always
in touch with the primitive mind.”

“You ought to do great things here, Belward,”
said the other seriously. “ You have the trick ; and
we need wisdom at Westminster.”

“ Don’t be mistaken ; I am only adaptable. There’s
frank confession ! ”

At this point Mr. Babbs came up and said good-
night in a large, self-conscious way. Gaston hoped
that his campaign would not be wasted, and the fluffy
gentleman retired. When he got out of earshot in
the shadows, he turned and shook his fist towards
Gaston, saying, “ Half-breed upstart ! ” Then he re-
freshed his spirits by swearing at his coachman.

Gaston and Jacques drove quickly over to “The
Whisk o’ Barley.” Gaston was now intent to tell the
whole truth. He wished that he had done it before ;
but his motives had been good — it was not to save
himself. Yet he shrank. Presently he thought:

“What is the matter with me? Before I came

132

THE TRESPASSER.

here, if I had an idea I stuck to it, and didn’t have
any nonsense when I knew I was right. I am getting
sensitive — the thing I find everywhere in this country :
fear of feeling or giving pain ; as if the had tooth out
isn’t better than the had tooth in ! When I really get
sentimental I’ll fold my Arab tent — so help me, ye
seventy Gods of Yath ! ”

A little while after he was at Mrs. Cawley’s bed,
the landlord handing him a glass of hot grog, Jock’s
mother eying him feverishly from the quilt. Gaston
quietly felt her wrist, counting the pulse-beats ; then
told Cawley to wet a cloth and hand it to him. He
put it gently on the woman’s head. The eyes of the
woman followed him anxiously. He sat down again,
and in response to her questioning gaze, began the
story of Jock’s life as he knew it.

Cawley stood leaning on the footboard ; the wom-
an’s face was cowled in the quilt with hungry eyes ;
and Gaston’s voice went on in a low monotone, to the
ticking of the great clock in the next room. Gaston
watched her face, and there came to him like an in-
spiration little things Jock did, which would mean
more to his mother than large adventures. Her lips
moved now and again, even a smile flickered. At last
Gaston came to his father’s own death and the years
that followed ; then the events in Labrador.

He * approached this with unusual delicacy : it
needed bravery to look into the mother’s eyes, and

HE ANSWERS AN AWKWARD QUESTION. 133

tell the story. He did not know how dramatically
he told it — how he etched it without a waste word.
When he came to that scene in the Fort, — the three
men sitting, targets for his bullets, — he softened the
details greatly. He did not tell it as he told it at the
Court, but the simpler, sparser language made it trag-
ically clear. There was no sound from the bed, none
from the footboard, but he heard a door open and
shut without, and footsteps somewhere near.

How he put the body in the tree, and prayed over
it and left it there, was all told; and then he paused.
He turned a little sick as he saw the white face before
him. She drew herself up, her fingers caught away
the night-dress at her throat ; she stared hard at him
for a moment, and then, with a wild, moaning voice,
cried out:

“You killed my boy! You killed my boy! You
killed my boy ! ”

Gaston was about to take her hand, when he heard
a shuffle and a rush behind him. He rose, turned
swiftly, saw a bottle swinging, threw up his hand . . .
and fell backwards against the bed.

The woman caught his bleeding head to her breast,
and hugged it.

“ My Jock ! my poor boy ! ” she cried in delirium
now.

Cawley had thrown his arms about the struggling,
drunken assailant — Jock’s poaching friend.

134

THE TRESPASSER.

The mother now called out to the pinioned man,
as she had done to Gaston :

“ You have killed my boy ! ”

She kissed Gaston’s bloody face.

A messenger was soon on the way to Ridley Court,
and in a little upper room Jacques was caring for his
master.

CHAPTER IX.

HE FINDS HEW SPONSORS.

Gaston lay for many days at “The Whisk o’
Barley.” During that time the inn was not open to
customers. The woman also for two days hung at
the point of death, and then rallied. She remem-
bered the events of the painful night, and often asked
after Gaston. Somehow, her horror of her son’s death
at his hands was met by the injury done him now.
She vaguely felt that there had been justice and pun-
ishment. She knew that in the room at Labrador Gas-
ton Belward had been scarcely less mad than her son.

Gaston, as soon as he became conscious, said that
his assailant must be got out of the way of the police,
and to that end bade Jacques send for Mr. Warren
Gasgoyne. Mr. Gasgoyne and Sir William arrived at
the same time, but Gaston was unconscious again.
Jacques, however, told them what his master’s wishes
were, and they were carried out; Jock’s friend secretly
left England forever. Sir William and Mr. Gasgoyne
got the whole tale from the landlord, whom they asked
to say nothing publicly.

136

THE TRESPASSER.

Lady Bel ward drove down each day, and sat beside
him for a couple of hours — silent, solicitous, smooth-
ing his pillow or his wasting hand. The brain had
been injured, and recovery could not be immediate.
ITovey the housekeeper had so begged to be installed as
nurse, that her wish was granted, and she was with
him night and day. Now she shook her head at him
sadly, now talked in broken sentences to herself, now
bustled about silently, a tyrant to the other servants
sent down from the Court. Every day also the head-
groom and the huntsman came, and in the village Gas-
ton’s humble friends discussed the mystery, stoutly de-
fending him when some one said it was “ more nor
gabble, that theer saying o’ the poacher at the meet-
in’ ! ”

But the landlord and his wife kept silence, the of-
ficers of the law took no action, and the town and coun-
try newspapers could do no more than speak of “ A
vicious assault upon the heir of Ridley Court.” It had
become the custom now to leave Ian out of that question.
But the wonder died as all wonders do, and Gaston
made his fight for health.

The day before he was removed to the Court, Mrs.
Cawley was helped upstairs to see him. She was gaunt
and hollow-eyed. Lady Belward and Mrs. Gasgoyne
were present. The woman made her respects, and then
stood at Gaston’s bedside. He looked up with a pain-
ful smile.

HE FINDS NEW SPONSORS.

“Do you forgive me?” he asked. — “I’ve almost
paid ! ”

He touched his bandaged head.

“ It ain’t for mothers to forgi’e the thing” she re-
plied, in a steady voice, “ but I can forgi’e the man.
’Twere done i’ madness — there beant the will workin’
i’ such. ’Twere a comfort that he’d a prayin’ over
uni”

Gaston took the gnarled fingers in his. It had never
struck him how dreadful a thing it was, — so used had
he been to death in many forms — till he had told the
story to this mother.

“ Mrs. Cawley,” he said, “ I can’t make up to you
what j ock would have been ; but I can do for you in
one way as much as Jock. This house is yours from
to-day.”

He drew a deed from the coverlet, and handed it to
her. He had got it from Sir William that morning.
The poor and the crude in mind can only understand
an objective emotion, and the counters for these are
this world’s goods. Here was a balm in Gilead. The
love of her child was real, but the consolation was so
practical to Mrs. Cawley that the lips which might
have cursed, said :

“ Oh, sir, the wind do be fittin’ the shore lamb ! I’
the last Judgen, I’ll no speak agen ’ee. I be sore fret-
ted harm come to ’ee.”

At this Mrs. Gasgoyne rose, and in her bustling

38

THE TRESPASSER.

way dismissed the grateful peasant, who fondled the
deed and called eagerly down the stairs to her husband
as she went.

Mrs. Gasgoyne then came back, sat down, and said :

“Now you needn’t fret about that any longer —
barbarian ! ” she added, shaking a finger. “ Didn’t I
say that you would get into trouble ? that you would
set the country talking? Here you were, in the dead
of night, telling ghost stories, and raking up your sins,
with no cause whatever, instead of in your bed. You
were to have lunched with us the next day — I had
asked Lady Harriet to meet you, too ! — and you didn’t ;
and you have wretched patches where your hair ought
to be. How can you promise that you’ll not make a
madder sensation some day ? ”

Gaston smiled up at her. Her fresh honesty,
under the guise of banter, was always grateful to
him. He shook his head, smiled, and said nothing.

She went on.

“ I want a promise that you will do what your god-
father and godmother will swear for you.”

She acted on him like wine.

“ Of course, anything. Who are my godfather and
godmother ? ”

She looked him steadily, warmly in the eyes :

“Warren and myself.”

Now he understood : his promise to his grand-
mother and grandfather. So, they had spoken ! He

HE FINDS NEW SPONSORS.

139

was sure that Mrs. Gasgoyne had objected. He knew
that behind her playful treatment of the subject
there was real scepticism of himself. It put him on
his mettle, and yet he knew she read him deeper than
anyone else, and flattered him least.

He put out his hand, and took hers.

“ You take large responsibilities,” he said, “ but I
will try and justify you — honestly, yes.”

In her hearty way, she kissed him on the
cheek.

“ There ! ” she responded, “ if you and Delia do
make up your minds, see that you treat her well. And
you are to come, just as soon as you are able, to stay
at Peppingham. Delia, silly child, is anxious, and
can’t see why she mustn’t call with me now.

In his room at the Court that night, Gaston in-
quired of Jacques about Alice Wingfield, and was told
that on the day of the accident she had left with her
grandfather for the Continent. He was not sorry.
For his own sake he could have wished an under-
standing between them. But now he was on the way
to marriage, and it was as well that there should he
no new situations. The girl could not wish the thing
known. There would be left him, in this case, to be-
friend her should it ever he needed. He remembered
the spring of pleasure he felt when he first saw other
faces like his father’s — his grandfather’s, his grand-

140

THE TRESPASSER.

mother’s. But this girl’s was so different to him;
having the tragedy of the lawless, that unconscious
suffering stamped by the mother upon the child.
There was, however, nothing to he done. He must
wait.

Two days later Lady Dargan called to inquire after
him. He was lying in his study with a book, and Lady
Bel ward sent to ask him if he would care to see her
and Lord Hargan’s nephew, Cluny Vosse. Lady Bel-
ward did not come ; Sir William brought them. Lady
Dargan came softly to him, smiled more with her eyes
than her lips, and told him how sorry she had been to
hear of his illness. Some months before Gaston had
met Cluny Vosse, who at once wTas his admirer. Gas-
ton liked the youth. He was fresh, high-minded, ex-
travagant, idle ; hut he had no vices, and no particu-
lar vanity save for his personal appearance. His face
was ever radiant with health, shining with satisfaction.
People liked him, and did not discount it by saying
that he had nothing in him. Gaston liked him most
because he was so wholly himself, without guile, beau-
tifully honest.

Now Cluny sat down, tapped the crown of his hat,
looked at him cheerily, and said :

“ Got in a cracker, didn’t he ? ”

Gaston nodded, amused.

“ The fellows at Brook’s had a talkee-talkee, and
they’d twenty different stories. Of course it was rot.

HE FINDS NEW SPONSORS.

141

We were all cut up though and hoped you’d pull
through. Of course there couldn’t be any doubt of
that — you’ve been through too many, eh?”

Cluny always assumed that Gaston had had num-
berless tragical adventures which, if told, must make
Dumas turn in his grave with envy.

Gaston smiled, and laid a hand upon the other’s
knee.

“I’m not shell-proof, Yosse, and it was rather a
narrow squeak, I’m told. But I’m kept, you see, for
a worse fate and a sadder.”

“I say, Bel ward, you don’t mean that? Your
eyes go so queer sometimes, that a chap doesn’t know
what to think. You ought to live to a hundred.
You’ll have to. You’ve got it all ”

“Oh no, my boy, I haven’t got anything.” He
waved his hand pleasantly towards his grandfather.
“I’m on the knees of the gods merely.”

Cluny turned on Sir William.

“ It isn’t any secret, is it, sir ? He gets the lot,
doesn’t he ? ”

Sir William’s occasional smile came.

“ I fancy there’s some condition about the plate,
the pictures, and the title ; but I do not suppose that
matters meanwhile ! ”

He spoke half-musingly and with a little uncon-
scious irony, and the boy, vaguely knowing that there
was a cross-current somewhere, drifted.

142

THE TRESPASSER.

“No, of course not; he can have fun enough with-
out them, can’t he ? ”

Lady Dargan here soothingly broke in, inquiring
about Gaston’s illness, and showing a tactful concern.
But the nephew persisted :

“ I say, Belward, Aunt Sophie was cut up no end
when she heard of it. She wouldn’t go out to dinner
that night at Lord D unfolly’s, and of course I didn’t
go. And I wanted to ; for Delia Gasgoyne was to be
there, and she’s ripping.”

Lady Dargan, in spite of herself, blushed, but
without confusion, and Gaston adroitly led the con-
versation otherwhere. Presently she said that they
were to be at their villa in France during the late
summer, and if he chanced to be abroad would he
come ? He said that he intended to visit his uncle in
Paris, but that afterwards he would be glad to visit
them for a short time.

She looked astonished.

“ With your uncle Ian ! ”

“ Yes. He is to show me art-life, and all that.”

She looked troubled. He saw that she wished to
say something.

“ Yes, Lady Dargan ? ” he asked.

She spoke with fluttering seriousness.

“ I asked you once to come to me if you ever
needed a friend. I do not wait for that. I ask you
not to go to your uncle.”

HE FINDS NEW SPONSORS.

143

“ Why?”

He was thinking that, despite social artifice and
worldliness, she was sentimental.

“ Because there will he trouble. I can see it.
You may trust a woman’s instinct ; and I know that
man ! ”

He did not reply at once, but presently said :

“ I fancy I must keep my promise.”

“ What is the book you are reading ? ” she said,
changing the subject, for Sir William was listening.

He opened it, and smiled musingly. •

“It is called Affairs of Some Consequence in the
Reign of Charles I. In reading it I seemed to feel
that it was incorrect, and my mind kept wandering
away into patches of things — incidents, scenes, bits of
talk — as I fancied they really were, not apocryphal or
‘ edited ’ as here.”

“ I say,” said Cluny, “ that’s rum, isn’t it ? ”

“ For instance,” Gaston continued, “ this tale of
King Charles and Buckingham.” He read it. “ How
here is the scene as I picture it.” In quick, elliptical
phrases he gave the tale from a different standpoint.

Sir William stared curiously at Gaston, then felt
for some keys in his pocket. He got up and rang the
bell. Gaston was still talking. He gave the keys to
Falby with a whispered word. In a few moments
Falby placed a small leather box beside Sir William,
and retired at a nod. Sir William presently said :

144

THE TRESPASSER.

“ Where did you read those things ? ”

“ I do not know that I ever read them.”

“ Did your father tell you them ? ”

44 I do not remember so, though he may have.”

“ Did you ever see this box ? ”

“ Never before.”

“ You do not know what is in it? ”

“ Not in the least.”

“ And you have never seen this key ? ”

“ Not to my knowledge.”

“ It is very strange.” He opened the box. 44 Now,
here are private papers of Sir Gaston Belward, more
than two hundred years old, found almost fifty years
ago by myself in the office of our family solicitor.
Listen.”

He then began to read from the faded manuscript.
A mysterious feeling pervaded the room. Once or
twice Cluny gave a dry nervous kind of laugh. Much
of what Gaston had said was here in stately old-
fashioned language. At a certain point the MSS. ran :

“ I drew back and said, 4 As your grace will have
it, then ’ ”

Here Gaston came to a sitting posture, and inter-
rupted.

44 Wait, wait ! ”

He rose, caught one of two swords that were
crossed on the wall, and stood out.

44 This is how it was. 4 As your grace will have it,

HE FINDS NEW SPONSORS.

145

then, to no waste of time!’ We fell to. First he
came carefully, and made strange feints, learned at
King Louis’ Court, to try my temper. But I had had
these tricks of my cousin Secord, and I returned his
sport upon him. Then he came swiftly, and forced
me back upon the garden wall. I gave to him foot by
foot, for he was uncommon swift and dexterous. He
pinched me sorely once under the knee, and I re-
turned him one upon the wrist, which sent a devilish
fire into his eyes. At that his play became so delicate
and confusing that I felt I should go dizzy if it stayed ;
so I tried the one great trick cousin Secord taught
me, making to run him through, as a last effort. The
thing went wrong, but checking off my blunder he
blundered too, — out of sheer wonder, perhaps, at my
bungling — and I disarmed him. So droll was it that
I laughed outright, and he, as quick in humour as in
temper, stood hand on hip, and presently came to a
smile. With that my cousin Secord cried : ‘ The king !
the king ! ’ I got me up quickly ”

Here Gaston, who had in a kind of dream acted
the whole scene, swayed with faintness, and Cluny
caught him, saving him from a fall. Cluny’s colour
was all gone. Lady Dargan had sat dazed, and Sir
William’s face was anxious, puzzled.

A few hours later Sir William was alone with Gas-
ton, who was recovered and cool.

“ Gaston,” he said, “ I really do not understand

146

THE TRESPASSER.

this faculty of memory, or whatever it is. Have you
any idea how you come by it ? ”

“ Have we any idea how life comes and goes, sir ? ”

“ I confess not. I confess not, really.”

“ Well, I’m in the dark about it too ; but I some-
times fancy that I’m mixed up with that other Gas-
ton.”

“ It sounds fantastic.”

“It is fantastic. Now, here is this manuscript,
and here is a letter I wrote this morning. Put them
together.”

Sir William did so.

“ The handwriting is singularly like.”

“Well,” continued Gaston, smiling whimsically,
“ suppose that I am Sir Gaston Belward, Baronet, who
is thought to lie in the church yonder, the title is
mine, isn’t it ? ”

Sir William smiled also.

“ The evidence is scarce enough to establish suc-
cession.”

“ But there would be no succession. A previous
holder of the title isn’t dead : ergo , the present holder
has no right.”

Gaston had shaded his eyes with his hand, and he
was watching Sir William’s face closely, out of curi-
osity chiefly. Sir William regarded the thing with
hesitating humour.

“ Well, well, suppose so. The property was in the

HE FINDS NEW SPONSORS. 147

hands of a younger branch of the family then. There
was no entail, as now.”

“ Wasn’t there ? ” said Gaston enigmatically.

He was thinking of some phrases in a manuscript
which he had found in this box.

“ Perhaps where these papers came from there are
others,” he added.

Sir William lifted his eyebrows ironically.

“ I hardly think so.”

Gaston laughed, not wishing him to take the thing
at all seriously. He continued airily :

“ It would be amusing if the property went with
the title after all, wouldn’t it, sir?”

Sir William got to his feet and said testily :

“ That should never be while I lived ! ”

“ Of course not, sir.”

Sir William saw the bull, and laughed, heartily for
him.

They bade each other good-night.

“I’ll have a look in the solicitor’s office all the
same,” said Gaston to himself.

CHAPTER X.

HE COMES TO “ THE WAKIHG OF THE FIRE.”

A few days afterwards Gaston joined a small
party at Peppingham. Without any accent life was
made easy for him. He was alone much, and yet, to
himself, he seemed to have enough of company.

The situation did not impose itself conspicuously.
Delia gave him no especial reason to be vain. She
had not an exceeding wit, but she had charm, and her
talk was interesting to Gaston, who had come, for the
first time, into somewhat intimate relations with an
English girl. He was struck with her conventional
delicacy and honour on one side, and the limitation of
her ideas on the other. But with it all she had some
slight touch of temperament which lifted her from
the usual level. And just now her sprightliness was
more marked than it had ever been.

Her great hour seemed come to her. She knew
that there had been talk among the elders, and what
was meant by Gaston’s visit. Still, they were not
much alone together. Even a woman with a tender
strain for a man knows what will serve for her

HE COMES TO THE “WAKING OF THE FIRE.” 149

ascendancy. Gaston saw her mostly with others : the
graciousness of her disposition, the occasional flash of
her mother’s temper, and her sense of being superior
to a situation — the gift of every well-bred English
girl.

Cluny Yosse was also at the house, and his devo-
tion was divided between Delia and Gaston. Cluny
was a great favourite, and Agatha Gasgoyne, who had
a wild sense of humour, egged him on with her sister,
which gave Delia enough to do. At last Cluny, in a
burst of confidence, declared that he meant to propose
to Delia. Agatha then became serious, and said that
Delia was at least four years older than himself, that
he was just her — Agatha’s — age, and that the other
match would be very unsuitable. This put Cluny on
Delia’s defence, and he praised her youth, and hinted
at his own elderliness. He had lived, he had seen It
(Cluny called the world and all therein “ It”), he was
aged ; he wras in the large eye of experience ; he had
outlived the vices and the virtues of his time, which,
told in his own naive staccato phrases, made Agatha
hug herself. She advised him to go and ask Mr.
Belward’s advice ; begged him not to act until he had
done so. And Cluny, who was blind as a bat when a
woman mocked him, went to Gaston and said :

“ See, old chap, — I know you don’t mind my
calling you that, — I’ve come for advice. Agatha said
I’d better. A fellow comes to a time when he says,

150

THE TRESPASSER.

‘ Here, I want a shop of my own,’ doesn’t he ? He’s
seen It, he’s had It all colours, he’s ready for family
duties, and the rest. That’s so, isn’t it ? ”

Gaston choked back a laugh, and, purposely put-
ting himself on the wrong scent, said :

“ And does Agatha agree ? ”

“ Agatha ? Come, Belward, that youngster !
Agatha’s only in on a sisterly-brotherly basis. How,
see : I’ve got a little load of £ s. d., and I’m to get
more, especially if Uncle Dick keeps on thinking I
am artless. Well, why shouldn’t I marry ? ”

“Ho reason against it, if husband and father in
you yearn for bibs and petticoats ! ”

“ I say, Belward, don’t laugh ! ”

“ I never was more serious. Who is the girl ? ”

“ She looks up to you as I do — of course that’s
natural ; and if it comes off, no one’ll have a jollier
corner chez nous. It’s Delia ! ”

“ Delia ? Delia who ? ”

“ Why, Delia Gasgoyne. I haven’t done the thing
quite regular, I know. I ought to have gone to her
people first ; but they know all about me, and so does
Delia, and I’m on the spot, and it wouldn’t look well
to be taking advantage of that with her father and
mother — they’d feel bound to be hospitable ! So I’ve
just gone on my own tack, and I’ve come to Agatha
and you. Agatha said, to ask you if I’d better speak
to Delia now.”

HE COMES TO “THE WAKING OF THE FIRE.” 151

“ My dear Cluny, are you very much in love ? ”

“ That sounds religious, doesn’t it — a kind of Non-
conformist business ? I think she’s the very finest !
and a fellow’d hold himself up, ’d be a deuce of a
swell, — and, hang it all, I hate breakfasting alone ! ”

“ Yes, yes, Cluny ; but what about a pew in
church, with regular attendance, and a justice of the
peace, and little Cluny Vosses on the carpet? ”
Cluny’s face went crimson.

“I say, Belward, I’ve seen It all, of course; I
know It backwards, and I’m not squeamish, but that
sounds — flippant — that, with her ! ”

Gaston reached out and caught the boy’s shoulder.
“ Don’t do it, Cluny. Spare yourself. It couldn’t
come off. Agatha knows that, I fancy. She is a
little sportsman. I might let you go and speak ; but
I think my chances are better than yours, Cluny.
Hadn’t you better let me try first? Then, if I fail,
your chances are still the same, eh ? ”

Cluny gasped. His warm face went pale, then shot
to purple, and finally settled into a grey ruddiness.

“ Belward,” he said at last, “ I didn’t know ; upon
my soul, I didn’t know, or I’d have cut off my head
first ! ”

“ My dear Cluny, you shall have your chance ; but
let me go first, I’m older.”

“ Belward, don’t take me for a fool ! Why, my
trying what yon go to do is like — is like ”

152

THE TRESPASSER.

Cluny’s similes failed to come.

“ Like a fox and a deer on the same trail?”

“ I don’t understand that. Like a yeomanry
steeplechase to Sandown — is that it? Bel ward, I’m
sorry. Playing it so low on a chap you like ! ”

“ Don’t say a word, Cluny ; and, believe me, you
haven’t yet seen all of It. There’s plenty of time.
When you really have had It, you will learn to say
of a woman, not that she’s the very finest, and that
you hate breakfasting alone, hut something that’ll
turn your hair white, or keep you looking forty when
you’re sixty.”

That evening Gaston dressed with unusual care.
When he entered the drawing-room, he looked as
handsome as a man need in this world. His illness
had refined his features and form, and touched off
his cheerfulness with a fine melancholy. Delia glowed
as she saw the admiring glances sent his way, but
burned with anger when she also saw that he was to
take in Lady Gravesend to dinner ; for Lady Graves-
end had spoken slightingly of Gaston — had, indeed,
referred to his “ nigger blood ! ” And now her mother
had sent her in to dinner on his arm, she affable, too
affable by a great deal. Had she heard the dry and
subtle suggestion of Gaston’s talk, she would, how-
ever, have justified her mother.

About half-past nine Delia was in the doorway,
talking to one of the guests, who, at the call of some-

HE COMES TO “THE WAKING OF THE FIRE.” 153

one else, suddenly left her. She heard a voice be-
hind her.

“ Will you not sing?”

She thrilled, and turned to say :

“ What shall I sing, Mr. Belward ? ”

“The song I taught you the other day — ‘The
Waking of the Fire.’ ”

“ But I’ve never sung it before anybody.”

“Do I not count? — But that’s unfair! Believe
me, you sing it very well.”

She lifted her eyes to his :

“ You do not pay compliments, and I believe you.
Your ‘very well’ means much. If you say so, I will
do my best.”

“I say so. You are amenable. — Is that your
mood to-night ? ” He smiled brightly.

Her eyes flashed with a sweet malice.

“ I am not at all sure. It depends on how your
command to sing is justified.”

“ You cannot help but sing well.”

“ Why?”

“ Because I will help you — make you.”

This startled her ever so little. Was there some
fibre of cruelty in him? some evil in this influence
he had over her ? She shrank, and yet again she said
that she would rather have his cruelty than another
man’s tenderness, so long as she knew that she had
his She paused, and did not say the word. She

154

THE TRESPASSER.

met his eyes steadily, — their concentration dazed her
—and said almost coldly, her voice sounding far away :

“ How, make me ? ”

“ How fine ! how proud ! ” he said to himself, then
added : “ I meant ‘ make ’ in the helpful sense. I
know the song : I’ve heard it sung, I’ve sung it ; I’ve
taught you ; my mind will act on yours, and you will
sing it well.”

“ Won’t you sing it yourself ? Do, please.”

“ Ho ; to-night I wish to hear you.”

“ Why?”

“ I will tell you later. Can you play the accom-
paniment ? If not, I ”

“ Oh, will you ? I could sing it then, I think.
You played it so beautifully the other day — with all
those strange chords.”

He smiled.

“ It is one of the few things that I can play. I al-
ways had a taste for music ; and up in one of the forts
there was an old melodeon, so I hammered away for
years. I had to learn difficult things at the start, or
none at all, or else those I improvised ; and that’s how
I can play one or two of Beethoven’s symphonies pret-
ty well, and this song, and a few others, and go a
cropper with a waltz. Will you come ? ”

They moved to the piano. Ho one at first noticed
them. When he sat down, he said :

“ You remember the words ? ”

HE COMES TO “THE WAKING OF THE FIRE.” 155

“ Yes, I learned them by heart.”

“ Good I ”

He gently struck the chords. Ilis gentleness had,
however, a firmness, a deep persuasiveness, which drew
every face like a call. A few chords waving, as it
wTere, over the piano, and then he whispered :

“ Now ! ”

“ Oh ! go on for a minute longer,” she begged.
“ My throat feels dry all at once.”

“ Face away from the rest, towards me,” he said
gently.

She did so. His voice took a note softly, and held
it. Presently her voice as softly joined it, his stopped,
and hers went on :

“ In the lodge of the Mother of Men,

In the land of Desire,

Are the embers of fire,

Are the ashes of those who return,

Who return to the world :

Who flame at the breath
Of the Mockers of Death. —

0 Sweet, we will voyage again
To the camp of Love’s fire,

Nevermore to return ! ”

“ How am I doing ? ” she said at the end of this
verse.

She really did not know — her voice seemed an end-
less distance away. But she felt the stillness in the
drawing-room.

156

THE TRESPASSER.

“ Well ! ” he said. “ Now for the other. Don’t
be afraid ; let your voice, let yourself, go.”

“ I can’t let myself go.”

“ Yes, you can : just swim with the music.”

She did swim with it. Never before had Pepping-
ham drawing-room heard a song like this ; never be- *
fore, never after, did any of Delia Gasgoyne’s friends
hear her sing as she did that night. And Lady
Gravesend whispered for a week afterwards that Delia
Gasgoyne sang a wild love song in the most abandoned
way with that colonial Belward. — Really a song of the
most violent sentiment !

There had been witchery in it all. For Gaston
lifted the girl on the waves of his music, and did what
he pleased with her, as she sang :

“ O love, by the light of thine eye
We will fare oversea,

We will be

As the silver-winged herons that rest
By the shallows,

The shallows of sapphire stone ;

No more shall we wander alone.

As the foam to the shore
Is my spirit to thine ;

And God’s serfs as they fly, —

The Mockers of Death —

They will breathe on the embers of fire :

We shall live by that breath, —

Sweet, thy heart to my heart,

As we journey afar,

No more, nevermore, to return ! ”

HE COMES TO “THE WAKING OF THE FIRE.” 157

When the song was ended there was silence, then
an eager murmur, and requests for more ; but Gaston,
still lengthening the close of the accompaniment, said
quietly :

“ No more. I wanted to hear you sing that song
only.”

He rose.

“ I am so very hot ! ” she said.

“ Come into the hall.”

They passed into the long corridor, and walked up
and down, for a time in silence.

“ You felt that music?” he asked at last.

“ As I never felt music before,” she replied.

“ Do you know why I asked you to sing it ? ”

“ How should I know ? ”

“ To see how far you could go with it.”

“ How far did I go ? ”

“ As far as I expected.”

“ It was satisfactory ? ”

“ Perfectly.”

“ But why — experiment — on me ? ”

“ That I might see if you were not, after all, as
much a barbarian as I.”

“Ami?”

“ No. That was myself singing as well as
you. You did not enjoy it altogether, did
you?”

“ In a way, yes. But — shall I be honest ? — I felt,

158

THE TRESPASSER.

too, as if, somehow, it wasn’t quite right ; — so much —
what shall I call it ? ”

“ So much of old Adam and the Garden ? — Sit
down here for a moment, will you ? ”

She trembled a little, and sat.

“ I want to speak plainly and honestly to you,” he
said, looking earnestly at her. “ You know my his-
tory— about my wife who died in Labrador, and all
the rest ? ”

“ Yes, they have told me.”

“Well, I have nothing to hide, I think; nothing
more that you ought to know: though I’ve been a
scamp one way and another.”

“ ‘ That I ought to know ? ’ ” she repeated.

“ Yes : for when a man asks a woman to be his
wife, he should be prepared to open the cupboard of
skeletons.”

She was silent ; her heart was beating so hard that
it hurt her.

“ I am going to ask you, Delia, to be my
wife.”

She was silent, and sat motionless, her hands
clasped in her lap.

He went on :

“ I don’t know that you will be wise to accept me,
but if you will take the risk ”

“ Oh, Gaston ! Gaston ! ” she said, and her hands
fluttered towards his.

IE COMES TO “THE WAKING OF THE FIRE.” 159

An hour later, he said to her, as they parted for the
night :

“ I hope, with all my heart, that you will never re-
pent of it, dear.”

“ You can make me not repent of it. It rests with
you, Gaston ; indeed, indeed, all with you ! ”

“ Poor girl ! ” he said, unconsciously, as he entered
his room. He could not have told why he said it.

“ Why will you always sit up for me, Brillon ? ” he
asked a moment afterwards.

Jacques saw that something had occurred.

“ I have nothing else to do, sir,” he replied.

“Brillon,” Gaston added presently, “we’re in a
devil of a scrape now.”

“ What shall we do, monsieur?”

“ Did we ever turn tail ? ”

“ Yes, from a prairie fire.”

“ Hot always. I’ve ridden through.”

“ Alovs, it’s one chance in ten thousand ! ”

“ There’s a woman to he thought of — J acques.”

“ There was that other time.”

“ Well, then? ”

Presently Jacques said :

“ Who is she, monsieur ? ”

Gaston did not answer. He was thinking hard.

Jacques said no more. The next morning early
the guests knew who the woman was, and by noon
Jacques also.

CHAPTER XI.

HE MAKES A GALLANT CONQUEST.

Gaston let himself drift. The game of love and
marriage is exciting, the girl was affectionate and ad-
miring, the world was genial, and all things came his
way. Towards the end of the hunting-season Captain
Maudsley had an accident. It would prevent him
riding to hounds again, and at his suggestion, hacked
by Lord Dunfolly and Lord Dargan, Gaston became
Master of the Hounds. His grandfather and great-
grandfather had been Master of the Hounds before
him. Hunting was a keen enjoyment — one outlet for
wild life in him — and at the last meet of the year he
rode in Captain Maudsley’s place. They had a good
run, and the taste of it remained with Gaston for
many a day ; he thought of it sometimes as he rode in
the Park now every morning — with Delia and her
mother !

Jacques and his broncho came no more, or if they
did it was at unseasonable hours, and then to be often
reprimanded (and twice arrested) for furious riding.
Gaston had a bad moment when he told Jacques that

HE MAKES A GALLANT CONQUEST. 161

he need not come with him again. He did it casually,
but, cool as he was, a cold sweat came on his cheek.
He had to take a little brandy to steady himself — yet
he had looked into menacing rifle-barrels more than
once without a tremor. It was clear, on the face of
it, that Delia and her mother should be his compan-
ions in the Park, and not this grave little half-breed ;
but, somehow, it got on his nerves. He hesitated for
days before he could cast the die against Jacques. It
had been the one open bond of the old life ; yet the
man was but a servant, and to be treated as such, and
was, indeed, except on rarest occasions. If Delia had
known that Gaston balanced the matter between her
and Jacques, her indignation might perhaps have sent
matters to a crisis. But Gaston did the only possible
thing ; and the weeks drifted on.

Happy ? It was inexplicable even to himself that
at times, when he left Delia, he said unconsciously :

“ Well, it’s a pity ! ”

But she was happy in her way. His dark, mysteri-
ous face with its background of abstraction, his un-
usual life, distinguished presence, and the fact that
people of great note sought his conversation, all
strengthened the bonds, and deepened her imagina-
tion; and imagination is at the root of much that
passes for love. Gaston was approached at Lord
Dargan’s by the Premier himself. It was suggested
that he should «tand for a constituency in the Con-

162

THE TRESPASSER.

servatiye interest. Lord Faramond, himself pictur-
esque, acute, with a keen knowledge of character and
a taste for originality, saw material for a useful sup-
porter— fearless, independent, with a gift for saying
ironical things, and some primitive and fundamental
principles well digested.

Gaston, smiling, said that he would only he a buf-
falo fretting on a chain.

Lord Faramond replied :

“And why the chain?” He followed this up
with : “ It is but a case of playing lion-tamer down
there. Have one little gift all your own, know when
to impose it, and you have the pleasure of feeling that
your fingers move a great machine, the greatest in the
world — yes, the very greatest ! There is Little Grap-
nel just vacant : the faithful Byng is dead. Come : if
you will, I’ll send my secretary to-morrow morning —
eh?”

“ You are not afraid of the buffalo, sir ? ”

Lord Faramond’s fingers touched his arm, drummed
it:

“My greatest need — one to roar as gently as the
sucking-dove.”

“ But what if I, not knowing the rules of the game,
should think myself on the corner of a veldt or in an
Indian’s tepee, and hit out ? ”

“ You do not carry derringers? ” He smiled.

“Ho; but ”

HE MAKES A GALLANT CONQUEST. 163

He glanced down at his arms.

“Well, well; that will come one day, perhaps!”
Lord Faramond paused, abstracted, then added : “ But
not through you. Good-bye, then, good-bye. Little
Grapnel in ten days ! ”

And it was so. Little Grapnel was Conservative.
It was mostly a matter of nomination, and in two
weeks Gaston, in a kind of dream, went down to West-
minster, lunched with Lord Faramond, and was intro-
duced to the House. The Ladies Gallery was full,
for the matter was in all the papers, and a pretty sen-
sation had been worked up one way and another.

That night, after dinner, Gaston rose to make his
maiden speech on a hill dealing with an imminent so-
cial question. He was not an amateur. Time upon
time he had addressed gatherings in the North, and
had once stood at the bar of the Canadian Commons
to plead the cause of the Half-breeds. He was pale,
but firm, and looked striking. His eyes went slowly
round the House, and he began in a low, clear, delib-
erate voice, which got attention at once. The first
sentence was, however, a surprise to every one, and not
the least to his own party, excepting Lord Faramond.
He disclaimed detailed and accurate knowledge of the
subject. He said this with an honesty which took
away the breath of the House. In a quiet, easy tone
he then referred to what had been previously said in
the debate.

164:

THE TRESPASSER.

The first thing he did was to crumble away with a
regretful kind of superiority the arguments of two
Conservative speakers; to the sudden amusement of
the Opposition, who presently cheered him. He looked
up as though a little surprised, waited patiently, and
went on. The iconoclasm proceeded. He had one or
two fixed ideas in his mind, simple principles on social
questions of which he had spoken to his leader, and he
never wavered from the sight of them, though he had
yet to state them. The Premier sat, head cocked, with
an ironical smile at the cheering, but he was wonder-
ing whether, after all, his man was sure ; whether he
could stand this fire, and reverse his engine quite as
he intended. One of the previous speakers was furi-
ous, came over and appealed to Lord Faramond, who
merely said, “ Wait.”

Gaston kept on. The flippant amusement of the
Opposition continued. Something, however, in his
grim steadiness began to impress his own party as the
other, while from the Ladies Gallery and the Strangers
Gallery there came a low murmur of sympathy. His
courage, his stone-cold strength, the disdain which
was coming into his voice, impressed them, apart from
his arguments or its bearing on the previous debate.
The House heard that low murmur from the galleries,
and looked up. Then there came a striking silence,
for Gaston paused. He also looked to the galleries.
As if in a dream — for his brain was working with

HE MAKES A GALLANT CONQUEST. 165

clear, painful power — lie saw, not Delia nor her
mother, nor Lady Dargan, hut Alice Wingfield and
her grandfather ! He had a sting, a rush in his blood.
He felt that none had an interest in him such as she :
shamed, sorrowful, denied the compensating comfort
which his brother’s love might give her. Her face,
looking through the carved barriers, pale, glowing,
anxious, almost weird, seemed set to the bars of a cage.

Gaston turned upon the House, and flashed a
glance at Lord Faramond. The Premier smiled. He
began slowly to pit against his former startling ad-
missions the testimony of his few principles, and to
buttress them on every side with apposite observations,
naive, pungent. Presently there came a poignant edge
to his trailing tones. After giving the subject new
points of view, showing him to have studied White-
chapel as well as Kicking Horse Pass, he contended
that no social problem could be solved by a bill so
crudely radical, so impractical.

He was saying : “ In the history of the British

Parliament ” when some angry member cried out :

“ Who coached you ? ”

Gaston’s quick eye found the man.

“ Once,” he answered instantly, “ one honourable
gentleman asked that of another in King Charles’
Parliament, and the reply then is mine— 4 You, sir ! ’ ”
“ How ? ” returned the puzzled member.

Gaston smiled with amiable disdain :

160

THE TRESPASSER.

“ The spur of the honourable gentleman’s neces-
sity ! ”

The game was in his hands. Lord Faramond
twisted a shoulder with satisfaction, tossed a whim-
sical look down the line of the Treasury Bench, and
from that Bench came unusual applause.

“ Where the devil did he get it ? ” queried a Min-
ister.

“ Out on the buffalo- trail ! ” replied Lord Fara-
mond. “ Good fellow ! ”

In the Ladies Gallery, Delia clasped her mother’s
hand with delight ; in the Strangers Gallery, a man
said softly : “Not so bad, Cadet ! ”

Alice Wingfield’s face had a light of aching pleas-
ure. “ Gaston ! Gaston ! ” she said, in a whisper heard
only by her grandfather, who, sitting back, watched
her affectionately, anxiously.

Gaston made his last effort in a comparison of the
state of the English people now and before she be-
came Cromwell’s Commonwealth, and then incisively
traced the social development onwards. It was the
work of a man with a dramatic nature and a mathe-
matical turn. He put the time, the manners, the
movements, the men, as in a picture.

Presently he grew scornful. His words came
hotly, like whip-lashes. He rose to force and power,
though his voice was never loud, rather concentrated,
resonant. It dropped suddenly to a tone of persua-

HE MAKES A GALLANT CONQUEST. 167

siveness and conciliation, and declaring that the bill
would be merely vicious where it meant to be virtuous,
ended with the question :

“ Shall we burn the house to roast the pig ? ”

“That sounds American,” said the member for
Burton-Halsey, “hut he hasn’t an accent. Pig is
vulgar though — vulgar.”

“ Make it Lamb — make it Lamb ! ” urged his
neighbour.

Meanwhile both sides applauded. Maiden speeches
like this were not common. A seat was empty —
whether of purpose or not, who can say ? — beside Lord
Faramond. He caught Gaston’s eye. Gaston came.

“ Most excellent buffalo ! ” he said. “ One day we
will chain you — to the Treasury Bench.”

Gaston smiled.

“ You are thought prudent, sir ! ”

“ Ah ! an enemy hath said this ! ”

Gaston looked towards the Ladies Gallery. De-
lia’s eyes were on him; Alice was gone.

A half-hour later he stood in the lobby, waiting
for Mrs. Gasgoyne, Lady Dargan, and Delia to come.
He had had congratulations in the House; he was
having them now. Presently someone touched him
on the arm.

“ Not so bad, Cadet ! ”

Gaston turned and saw his uncle. They shook
hands.

168

THE TRESPASSER.

“ You’ve a gift that way,” Ian Belward continued,
“ but to what good ? Bless you, the pot on the crack-
ling thorns ! Don’t you find it all pretty hollow? ”

Gaston was feeling reaction from the nervous
work.

“ It is exciting.”

“ Yes, but you’ll never have it again as to-night.
The place reeks with smugness, vanity, and drudgery.
It’s only the swells — Derby, Gladstone, and the few —
who get any real sport out of it. I can show you much
more amusing things.”

“ For instance ? ”

“ ‘ Hast thou forgotten me?’ You hungered for
Paris and Art and the joyous life. Well, I’m ready.
I want you. Paris, too, is waiting, and a good cuisine
in a cheery menage. Sup with me at the Garrick, and
I’ll tell you. Come along. Quis separabit ? ”

“ I have to wait for Mrs. Gasgoyne — and Delia.”

“Delia! Delia! Goddess of proprieties, has it
come to that ! ”

He saw a sudden glitter in Gaston’s eyes, and
changed his tone.

“ Well, an’ a man will he will, and he must be
wished good-luck. So, good-luck to you ! I’m sorry,
though, for that cuisine in Paris, and the grand pic-
nic at Fontainebleau, and Moban and Cerise. But it
can’t be helped ! ”

He eyed Gaston curiously. Gaston was not in the

HE MAKES A GALLANT CONQUEST. 169

least deceived. His uncle continued : “ But you will
have supper with me just the same? ”

Gaston consented, and at this point the ladies ap-
peared. He had a thrill of pleasure at hearing their
praises, but, somehow, of all the fresh experiences he
had had in England, this, the weightiest, left him
least elated. He had now had it all : the reaction
was begun, and he knew it !

“Well, Ian Belward, what mischief are you at
now ? ” said Mrs. Gasgoyne.

“A picture merely, and to offer homage. How
have you tamed our lion, and how sweetly does he
roar ! I feed him at my Club to-night.”

“ Ian Belward, you are never so wicked as when
you ought most to be decent ! — I wish I knew your
place in this picture,” she added brusquely.

“Merely a little corner at their fireside.” He
nodded towards Delia and Gaston.

“ The man has sense, and Delia is my daughter !”

“ Precisely why I wish a place in their affections.”

“Why don’t you marry one of the women you
have — spoiled, and spend the rest of your time in liv-
ing yourself down? You are getting old.”

“ For their own sakes, I don’t. Put that to my
credit. I’ll have but one mistress only as the sand
gets low. I’ve been true to her.”

“ You, true to anything ! ”

“ The world has said so.”

170

THE TRESPASSER.

“ Nonsense ! You couldn’t be.”

“ Visit my new picture in three months — my big-
gest thing. You will say my mistress fares well at
my hands.”

“ Mere talk. I have seen your mistress, and be-
fore every picture I have thought of those women ! A
thing cannot be good at your price : so don’t talk that
sentimental stuff to me.”

“ Be original ; you said that to me thirty years
ago.”

“ I remember perfectly : that did not require
much sense.”

“ No ; you tossed it off, as it were. Yet I’d have
made you a good husband. You are the most inter-
esting woman I’ve ever met.”

“The compliment is not remarkable. Now, Ian
Belward, don’t try to say clever things. And remem-
ber that I will have no mischief-making ! ”

“ At thy command ”

“ Oh ! cease acting, and take Sophie to her car-
riage.”

Two hours later, Delia Gasgoyne sat in her bed-
room wondering at Gaston’s abstraction during the
drive home. Yet she had a proud elation at his suc-
cess, and a happy tear came to her eye.

Meanwhile Gaston was supping with his uncle.
Ian was in excellent spirits : brilliant, caustic, genial,
suggestive. After a little while Gaston rose to the

HE MAKES A GALLANT CONQUEST. 171

temper of Lis host. Already the scene in the Com-
mons was fading from him, and when Ian proposed
Paris immediately, he did not demur. The season
was nearly over, Ian said ; very well, why remain ?
His attendance at the House ? W ell, it would soon
be up for the session. Besides, the most effective
thing he could do was to disappear for the time. Be
unexpected — that was the key to notoriety. Delia Gas-
goyne? Well, as Gaston had said, they were to meet
in the Mediterranean in September ; meanwhile a brief
separation would be good for both. Last of all —
he did not wish to press it — but there was a prom-
ise !

Gaston answered quietly, at last :

“ I will redeem the promise.”

“ When?”

“ Within thirty-six hours.”

“ That is, you will be at my studio in Paris within
thirty-six hours from now ? ”

“ That is it.”

“ Good ! I shall start at eight to-morrow morning.
You will bring your horse, Cadet ? ”

“ Yes, and Brillon.”

« He isn’t necessary.” Ian’s brow clouded slightly.

“ Absolutely necessary.”

“A fantastic little beggar. You can get a better
valet in France. Why have one at all ? I don’t, and
I’m to have the title ! ”

172

THE TRESPASSER.

“I shall not decline from Brillon on a Parisian
valet. Besides, he comes as my good comrade.”

“ Goth ! Goth ! My friend the valet ! Cadet,
you’re a wonderful fellow, but you’ll never fit in
quite.”

“ I don’t wish to fit in ; things must fit me.”

Ian smiled to himself.

“ He has tasted it all — it’s not quite satisfying —
revolution next ! What a smash-up there’ll be ! The
romantic, the barbaric overlaps. Well, I shall get my
picture out of it, and the estate too.”

Gaston toyed with his wine-glass, and was deep in
thought. Strange to say, he was seeing two pictures .
— The tomb of Sir Gaston in the little church at
Bidley : A gipsy’s van on the crest of a common, and
a girl standing in the doorway.

CHAPTER XII.

HE STAHDS BETWEEN TWO WORLDS.

The next morning he went down to the family
solicitor’s office. He had done so, off and on, for
weeks. He spent the time in looking through old
family papers, fishing out ancient documents, partly
out of curiosity, partly from an unaccountable pre-
sentiment. He had been there about an hour this
morning when a clerk brought him a small box,
which, he said, had been found inside another box
belonging to the Belward-Staplings, a distant branch
of the family. These had asked for certain ancient
papers lately, and a search had been made, with this
result. The little box was not locked, and the key
was in it. How the accident occurred was not diffi-
cult to imagine. Generations ago there had probably
been a conference of the two branches of the family,
and the clerk had inadvertently locked the one box
within the other. This particular box of the Belward-
Staplings was not needed again. Gaston felt that
here was something. These hours spent among old
papers had given him strange sensations, had, on the

174

THE TRESPASSER.

one hand, shown him his heritage ; but had also filled
him with the spirit of that bygone time. He had
grown further away from the present. He had played
his part as in a drama : his real life was in the distant
past and out in the land of the heathen.

How he took out a bundle of papers with broken
seals, and wound with a faded tape. He turned the
rich important parchments over in his hands. He
saw his own name on the outside of one : “ Sir Gas-
ton Robert Belward.” And there was added : “ Bart.”
He laughed. Well, why not complete the reproduc-
tion? He was an M. P. — why not a Baronet? He
knew how it was done. There were a hundred ways.
Throw himself into the arbitration question between
Canada and the United States : spend ten thousand
pounds of — his grandfather’s — money on an election ?
His reply to himself was cynical : the game was not
worth the candle. What had he got out of it all?
Money? Yes: and he enjoyed that — the power that
it gaye — thoroughly. The rest ? He knew that it did
not strike as deep as it ought : the family tradition,
the social scheme — the girl.

“ What a brute I am!” he said. “ I’m never
wholly of it. I either want to do as they did when
George Yilliers had his innings, or play the gipsy as
I did so many years.”

The gipsy ! As he held the papers in his hand he
thought as he had done last night, of the gipsy-van on

HE STANDS BETWEEN TWO' WORLDS. 175

Ridley Common, and of — how well he remembered her
name ! — of Andree.

He suddenly threw his head back, and laughed.

“ My God, but it is droll ! Last night, an English
gentleman, an honourable member with the Treasury
Bench in view; this morning an adventurer, a Ro-
many. I itch for change. And why ? Why ? I have
it all, yet I could pitch it away this moment for a wild
night on the Slope, or a nigger hunt on the Rivas.
Chateau-Leoville, Goulet, and Havanas at a bob? —
J ove, I thirst for a swig of raw Bourbon and the bite
of a penny Mexican ! Games, Gaston, games ! Why the
devil did little Joe worry at being made ‘move on’?
I’ve got ‘ move on ’ in every pore : the Wandering Jew.
Oh, a gentleman born am I ! But the Romany sweats
from every inch of you, Gaston Belward ! What was
it that sailor on the Cyprian said of the other ? — ‘ For
every hair of him was rope-yarn, and every drop of
blood Stockolm tar ! ’

He opened a paper. Immediately he was interested.
Another ; then, quickly, two more ; and at last, getting
to his feet with an exclamation, he held a document to
the light, and read it through carefully. He was alone
in the room. He calmly folded it up, put it in his
pocket, placed the rest of the papers back, locked the
box, and passing into the next room, gave it to the
clerk. Then he went out, a curious smile on his face.
He stopped presently on the pavement.

176

THE TRESPASSER.

“ But it wouldn’t hold good, I fancy, after all these
years. Yet Law is a queer business. Anyhow, I’ve
got it.”

An hour later he called on Mrs. Gasgoyne and Delia.
Mrs. Gasgoyne was not at home. After a little while,
Gaston, having listened to some extracts from the news-
papers upon his “ brilliant, powerful, caustic speech,
infinite in promise of an important career,” quietly told
her that he was starting for Paris, and asked when
they expected to go abroad in their yacht. Delia turned
pale, and could not answer for a moment. Then she
became very still, and as quietly answered that they ex-
pected to get away by the middle of August. He would
join them ? Yes, certainly, at Marseilles, or, perhaps,
Gibraltar. Her manner, so well-controlled, though her
features seemed to shrink all at once, if it did not de-
ceive him, gave him the wish to say an affectionate
thing. He took her hand and said it. She thanked
him, then suddenly dropped her fingers on his shoulder,
and murmured with infinite gentleness and pride :

“ You will miss me ; you ought to ! ”

He drew the hand down.

“ I could not forget you, Delia,” he said.

Her eyes came up quickly, and she looked steadily,
wonderingly, at him.

“ Was it necessary to say that? ”

She was hurt — inexpressibly, — and she shrank. He
saw that she misunderstood him ; hut he also saw that,

HE STANDS BETWEEN TWO WORLDS. 177

on the face of it, the phrase was not complimentary.
His reply was deeply kind, effective. There was a
pause — and the great moment for them both passed !
Something ought to have happened. It did not. If
she had had that touch of abandon shown when she
sang “ The Waking of the Fire,” Gaston might, even at
this moment, have broken his promise to his uncle ;
but, somehow, he knew himself slipping away from
her. With the tenderness he felt, he still knew that
he was acting ; imitating, reproducing other, better,
moments with her. He felt the disrespect to her, but
it could not be helped — it could not be helped !

He said that he would call and say good-bye to her
and Mrs. Gasgoyne at four o’clock. Then he left.
He went to his chambers, gave Jacques instructions,
did some writing, and returned at four. Mrs. Gas-
goyne had not come back. She had telegraphed that
she would not be in for lunch. There was nothing
remarkable in Gaston’s and Delia’s farewell. She
thought he looked worn, and ought to have change,
showing in every word that she trusted him, and was
anxious that he should be, as she put it gaily, “ comfy.”
She was composed. The cleverest men are blind in
the matter of a woman’s affections ; and Gaston was
only a mere man, after all. He thought that she had
gone about as far in the way of feeling as she could go.

Nevertheless, in his hansom, he frowned, and said :

“ I oughtn’t to go. But I’m choking here. I can’t

178

THE TRESPASSER.

play the game an hour longer without a change. I’ll
come back all right. I’ll meet her in the Mediterra-
nean, after my kick-up, and it’ll be all 0. K. Jacques
and I will ride down through Spain to Gibraltar, and
meet the Kismet there. I shall have got rid of this
restlessness then, and I’ll be glad enough to settle
down, pose for throne and constitution, cultivate the
olive branch, and have family prayers.”

At eight o’clock he appeared at Ridley Court, and
bade his grandfather and grandmother good-bye.
They were full of pride, and showed their affection in
indirect ways, — Sir William most by offering his opin-
ion on the Bill and quoting Gaston frequently ; Lady
Belward, by saying that next year she would certainly
go up to town — she had not done so for five years !
They both agreed that a scamper on the Continent
would now be good for him. At nine o’clock he passed
the rectory, on his way, strange to note, to the church.
There was one light burning, but it was not in the
study nor in Alice’s window. He supposed they had
not returned. He paused and thought. If anything
happened, she should know. — What should happen?
He shook his head. He moved on to the church.
The doors were unlocked. He went in, drew out
a little pocket-lantern, lit it, and walked up the
aisle.

“ A sentimental business this : I don’t know why
I do it,” he thought.

HE STANDS BETWEEN TWO WORLDS. 179

He stopped at the tomb of Sir Gaston Belward,
put his hand on it, and stood looking at it.

“I wonder if there is anything in it?” he said
aloud : “ if he does influence me ? if we’ve got any-
thing to do with each other ? What he did I seem to
know somehow, more or less. A little dwarf up in my
brain drops the nuts down now and then. Well, Sir
Gaston Belward, what is going to he the end of all
this? If we can reach across the centuries, why,
good-night and good-bye to you ! Good-bye ! ”

He turned and went down the aisle. At the door
a voice, a whispering voice, floated to him :

“ Good-bye ! ”

He stopped short and listened. All was still. He
walked up the aisle, and listened again. — Nothing!
He stood before the tomb, looking at it curiously. He
was pale, but collected. He raised the light above his
head, and looked towards the altar. — Nothing !

Then he went to the door again, and paused. —
Nothing !

Outside he said :

“ I’d stake my life I heard it ! ”

A few minutes afterwards, a girl rose up from be-
hind the organ in the chancel, and felt her way out-
side. It was Alice Wingfield, who had gone to pray
in the church. It was her good-bye that had floated
down to Gaston.

CHAPTER XIII.

HE JOURNEYS AFAR.

The newspapers gossiped. Where was the new
member? His friends could not tell, further than that
he had gone abroad. Lord Faramond did not know,
but fetched out his lower lip knowingly.

“ The fellow has instinct for the game,” he said.

Sketches, portraits were in the daily and weekly
journals, and one hardy journalist even gave an inter-
view— which had never occurred. But Gaston re-
mained a picturesque nine-days’ figure, and then Par-
liament rose for the year.

Meanwhile he was in Paris, and every morning
early he could he seen with Jacques riding up the
Champs Elysee and out to the Bois de Boulogne.
Every afternoon at three he sat for “ Monmouth ” or
the “ King of Ys ” with his horse in his uncle’s
garden.

Ian Belward might have lived in a fashionable
part ; he preferred the Latin Quarter, with incursions
into the other at fancy. Gaston lived for three days
in the Boulevard Ilaussman, and then took apart-

HE JOURNEYS AFAR.

181

ments, neither expensive nor fashionable, in a quiet
street.. He was surrounded by students and artists, a
few great men and a host of small men : Collarossi’s
school here and Delacluse’s there : models flitting in
and out of the studios in his courtyard, who stared
at him as he rode, and sought to gossip with Jacques j
— accomplished without great difficulty.

Jacques was transformed. A cheerful hue grew
on his face. He had been an exile, he was now at
home. His French tongue ran, now with words in
the patois of Normandy, now of Brittany; and all
with the accent of French Canada, an accent undis-
turbed by the changes and growths of France. He
gossipped, but no word escaped him which threw any
light on his master’s history.

Soon, in the Latin quarter, they were as notable as
they had been at Ridley Court or in London. On the
Champs Elysee side people staged at the two : chiefly
because of Gaston’s splendid mount and Jacques’
strange broncho. But they felt that they were at
home. Gaston’s French was not perfect, but it was
enough for his needs. He got a taste of that freedom
which he. had handed over to the dungeons of conven-
tion two years before. He breathed. Everything in-
terested him so much, that the life he had led in Eng-
land seemed very distant.

He wrote to Delia, of course. His letters were
brief, most interesting, not tenderly intimate, and not

182

THE TRESPASSER.

daily. From the first they puzzled her a little, and
continued to do so ; but because her mother said,
“ What an impossible man ! ” she said, “ Perfectly
possible ! Of course he was not like other men ; he
was a genius.”

And the days went on.

Gaston little loved the purlieus of the Place de
l’Opera. One evening at a club in the Boulevard
Malesherbes bored him. It was merely Anglo-Ameri-
can enjoyment, dashed with French drama. The
Bois was more to his taste, for he could stretch his
horse’s legs ; but every day he could be found before
some simple cafe in Montparnasse, sipping vermouth,
and watching the gay, light life about him. He sat
up with delight to see an artist and his “ Madame ”
returning from a journey in the country, seated upon
sheaves of corn, quite unregarded by the world ;
doing as they listed with unabashed simplicity. He
dined often at the little H6tel St. Malo near the
Gare Montparnasse, where the excellent Pelletier
played the host, father, critic, patron, comrade, — often
benefactor — to his bons enfants. He drank vin ordi-
naire, smoked caporal cigarettes, made friends, and
was in all as a savage — or a much-travelled English
gentleman.

His uncle Ian had introduced him here as at other
places of the kind,* and, whatever his ulterior object
was, had an artist’s pleasure at seeing a layman enjoy

HE JOURNEYS AFAR.

183

the doings of Paris art life. Himself lived more lux-
uriously. In an avenue not far from the Luxem-
bourg he had a small hotel with a fine old-fashioned
garden behind it, and here distinguished artists, mu-
sicians, actors, and actresses came at times.

The evening of Gaston’s arrival he took him to a
cafe and dined him, and afterwards to the Boullier —
there, merely that he might see ; but this place had
nothing more than a passing interest for him. His
mind had the poetry of a free, simple — even wild — life,
but he had no instinct for vice in the name of amuse-
ment. But the later hours spent in the garden under
the stars, the cheerful hum of the boulevards coming
to them distantly, stung his veins like good wine.
They sat and talked, with no word of England in it
at all, Jacques near, listening.

Ian Belward was at his best : genial, entertaining,
with the art of the man of no principles, no convic-
tions, and a keen sense of life’s sublime incongruities.
Even Jacques, whose sense of humour had grown by
long association with Gaston, enjoyed the piquant
conversation. The next evening the same. About
ten o’clock a few men dropped in : a sculptor, artists,
and Meyerbeer an American newspaper correspondent
— who, however, was not known as such to Gaston.

This evening Ian determined to make Gaston talk.
To deepen a man’s love for a thing, get him to talk
of it to the eager listener — he passes from the nar-

184

THE TRESPASSER.

rator to the advocate unconsciously. Gaston was not
to talk of England, but of the North, of Canada, Mex-
ico, the Lotos Isles. He did so picturesquely, yet
simply too, in imperfect but sufficient French. But
as he told of one striking incident in the Rockies, he
heard Jacques make a quick expression of dissent.
He smiled. He had made some mistake in detail.
Now, Jacques had been in his young days in Quebec
the village story-teller; one who, by inheritance or
competency, becomes semi-officially a raconteur for
the parish; filling in winter evenings, nourishing
summer afternoons with tales, weird, childlike,
daring.

Now Gaston turned and said to Jacques :

“Well, Brillon, I’ve forgotten, as you see; tell
them how it was.”

Two hours later when Jacques retired on some
errand, amid ripe applause, Ian said :

“ You’ve got an artist there, Cadet : that descrip-
tion of the fight with the loup garoo was as good as a
thing from Victor Hugo. Hugo must have heard
just such yarns, and spun them on the pattern*
Upon my soul, it’s excellent stuff. You’ve lived,
you two.”

Another night Ian Bel ward gave a dinner, at
which were present an actress, a singer of some re-
pute, the American journalist, and others. Some-
thing that was said sent Gaston’s mind to the House

I1E JOURNEYS AFAR.

185

of Commons. Presently he saw himself in a ridicu-
lous picture : a buffalo dragging the Treasury Bench
about the Chamber; as one conjures things in an
absurd dream. He laughed outright, at a moment
when Mademoiselle Cerise was telling of a remarkable
effect she produced one night in “Fedora,” unpre-
meditated, inspired; and Mademoiselle Cerise, with
smiling lips and eyes like daggers, called him a bear.
This brought him to himself, and he swam with the
enjoyment. He did enjoy it, but not as "his uncle
wished and hoped. Gaston did not respond eagerly
to the charms of Mademoiselle Cerise and Madame
Juliette.

Was Delia, then, so strong in the barbarian’s
mind ? He could not think so, but Gaston had not
shown yet, either for model, for daughter of joy, or
for the mademoiselles of the stage any disposition to
an amour or a mesalliance : either would be interest-
ing and sufficient ! Models went in and out of Ian’s
studio and the studios of others, and Gaston chatted
with them at times ; and once he felt the bare arm
and bare breast of a girl as she sat for a nymph, and
said in an interested way that her flesh was as firm
and fine as a Tongan’s. He even disputed with his
uncle on the tints of her skin, on seeing him paint it
in, showing a fine eye for colour. But there was
nothing more ; he was impressed, observant, inter-
ested,— that was all. His uncle began to wonder if

186

THE TRESPASSER.

the Englishman was, after all, deeper in the grain
than the savage. He contented himself with the be-
lief that the most vigorous natures are the most diffi-
cult to rouse. Mademoiselle Cerise sang, with chic
and abandon very fascinating to his own sensuous
nature, a song with a charming air and sentiment.
It was after a night at the opera when they had seen
her in “ Lucia,” and the contrast, as she sang in his
garden, softly lighted, showed her at the most attrac-
tive angles. She drifted from a sparkling chanson to
the delicate pathos of a song of De Musset’s.

Gaston responded to the artist ; but to the woman
— no! He had seen a new life, even in its abandon,
polite, fresh. It amused him, but he could still turn
to the remembrance of Delia without blushing, for he
had come to this in the spirit of the idler, not the
libertine.

Mademoiselle Cerise said to Ian at last :

“ j Enfin, is the man stone ? As handsome as a
leopard, too ! Voila, it is no matter ! ”

But she made another effort to interest him. It
galled her that he did not fall at her feet as others
had done. Even Ian had come there in his day, but
she knew him too well. She had said to him at the
time :

“You, monsieur? No, thank you. A week, a
month, and then the brute in you would out. You
make a woman fond, and then — a mat for your feet,

HE JOURNEYS AFAR.

187

and your wicked smile, and savage English words to
drive her to the vitriol or the Seine. Et puis , dear
monsieur, accept my good friendship, nothing more.
I will sing to you, dance to you, even pray for you —
we poor sinners do that sometimes, and go on sin-
ning ; but, again, nothing more.”

Ian admired her all the more for her refusal of
him, and they had been good friends. He had told
her of his nephew’s coming, had hinted at his for-
tune, at his primitive soul, at the unconventional
strain in him, even at marriage. She could not read
his purpose, but she knew there was something, and
answering him with a yes, had waited. Had Gaston
have come to her feet she would probably have got at
the truth somehow, and have worked in his favour, —
the joy vice takes to side with virtue, at times — when
it is at no personal sacrifice. But Gaston was supe-
rior in a grand way. He was simple, courteous, in-
terested only. This stung her, and she would bring
him to his knees, if she could. This night she had
rung all the changes, and had done no more than get
his frank applause. She became petulant in an airy
exacting way. She asked him about his horse. This
interested him. She wanted to see it. To-morrow?
No, no, now ! Perhaps to-morrow she would not care
to ; there was no joy in deliberate pleasure. Now —
now — now ! He laughed. Well, now, as she wished !

Jacques was called. She said to him :

188

THE TRESPASSER.

“ Come here, little comrade.” Jacques came.
“ Look at me,” she added. She fixed her eyes on
him, and smiled. She was in the soft flare of the
lights.

“ Well,” she said after a moment, “ what do you
think of me ? ”

Jacques was confused.

“ Madame is beautiful.”

“ The eyes ? ” she urged.

“ I have been to Gaspe, and west to Esquimault,
and in England, hut I have never seen such as
those ! ” he said. Race and primitive man spoke
there.

She laughed. “ Come closer, comrade.”

He did so. She suddenly rose, dropped her hands
on his shoulders, and kissed his cheek.

“ Now bring the horse, and I will kiss him too.”

Did she think she could rouse Gaston by kissing
his servant? Yet it did not disgust him. He knew
it was a bit of acting, and it was well done. Besides,
Jacques Brillon was not a mere servant, and he, too,
had done well. She sat hack and laughed lightly
when Jacques was gone. Then she said : “ The hon-
est fellow ! ” and hummed an air :

“ ‘ The pretty coquette

Well she needs to be wise,

Though she strike to the heart
By a glance of her eyes.

HE JOURNEYS AFAR.

189

For the daintiest bird
Is the sport of the storm,

And the rose fadeth most
When the bosom is warm.’ ”

In twenty minutes the gate of the garden opened,
and Jacques appeared with Saracen. The horse’s
black skin glistened in the lights, and he tossed his
head and champed his bit. Gaston rose. Mademoi-
selle Cerise sprang to her feet and ran forward.
Jacques put out his hand to stop her, and Gaston
caught her shoulder.

“ He’s wicked with strangers,” Gaston said.

“ Chut ! ” she rejoined, stepped quickly to the
horse’s head and, laughing, put out her hand to
stroke him. Jacques caught the beast’s nose, and
stopped a lunge of the great white teeth.

“ Enough, madame, he will kill you ! ”

“ Yet I am beautiful — is it not so ? ”

“ The poor beast is ver’ blind.”

“ A pretty compliment ! ” she rejoined, yet angry
at the beast.

Gaston came, took the animal’s head in his hands,
and whispered. Saracen became tranquil. Gaston
beckoned to Mademoiselle Cerise. She came. He
took her hand in his and put it at the horse’s lips.
The horse whinnied angrily at first, but permitted a
caress from the actress’ fingers.

“ He does not make friends easily,” said Gaston.

190

THE TRESPASSER.

“ Nor does his master.”

Her eyes lifted to his, the lids drooping sug-
gestively.

“ But when the pact is made ! ”

“ Till death us do part ? ”

“ Death or ruin.”

“ Death is better.”

“ That depends ! ”

“ Ah ! I understand,” she said. “ On— the wom-
an?”

“ Yes.”

Then he became silent.

“ Mount the horse,” she urged.

Gaston sprang at one bound upon the horse’s bare
back. Saracen reared and wheeled.

“ Splendid ! ” she said ; then, presently : “ Take me
up with you.”

He looked doubting for a moment, then whispered
to the horse.

“ Come quickly ! ” he said.

She came to the side of the horse. He stooped,
caught her by the waist, and lifted her up. Saracen
reared, but Gaston had him down in a moment.

Ian Belward suddenly called out :

“ For God’s sake, keep that pose for five minutes —
only five ! ” He caught up some canvas. “ Hold can-
dles near them,” he said to the others. They did so.
With great swiftness he sketched in the strange pic-

HE JOURNEYS AFAR.

191

ture. It looked weird, almost savage : Gaston’s large
form, his legs loose at the horse’s side, the woman in
her white drapery clinging to him.

In a little time the artist said :

“ There ; that will do. Ten such sittings and my
‘ King of Ys ’ will have its day with the world. I’d
give two fortunes for the chance of it ! ”

The woman’s heart had beat fast with Gaston’s arm
around her. He felt the thrill of the situation. Man,
woman, and horse were as of a piece.

But Cerise knew, when Gaston let her to the
ground again, that she had not conquered.

CHAPTER XIV.

IH WHICH THE PAST IS REPEATED.

Next morning Gaston was visited by Meyerbeer
the American journalist, of whose profession he was
still ignorant. He saw him only as a man of raw
vigour of opinion, crude manners, and heavy tempera-
ment. He had not been friendly to him at night, and
he was surprised at the morning visit. The hour was
such that Gaston must ask him to breakfast. The
two were soon at the table of the Hotel St. Malo.
Meyerbeer sniffed the air when he saw the place. The
linen was ordinary, the rooms small ; but all — he did
not take this into account — irreproachably clean. The
walls were covered with pictures ; some taken for un-
paid debts, gifts from students since risen to fame or
gone into the outer darkness, — to young artists’ eyes,
the sordid money-making world, — and had there been
lost ; from a great artist or two who remembered the
days of his youth and the good host who had seen
many little colonies of artists come and go.

They sat down to the table, which was soon filled
with students and artists. Then Meyerbeer began to

IN WHICH THE PAST IS REPEATED. 193

see, not only an interesting thing, but “ copy.” He
was, in fact, preparing a certain article which, as he
said to himself, would “ make ’em sit up ” in London
and Hew York. He had found out Gaston’s history,
had read his speech in the Commons, had seen para-
graphs speculating as to where he was ; and now he,
Salem Meyerbeer, would tell them what the wild fel-
low was doing. The Bullier, the cafes in the Latin
Quarter, apartments in a humble street, dining for
one-franc- fifty, supping with actresses, posing for the
King of Ys with that actress in his arms — all excellent
in their way. But now there was needed an entangle-
ment, intrigue, amour, and then America should shriek
at his picture of one of the British aristocracy, and a
gentleman of the Commons, “ on the loose,” as he
put it.

He would head it :

“ARISTOCRAT, POLITICIAN, LIBERTINE!”

Then, under that he would put :

“CAN THE ETHIOPIAN CHANGE HIS SKIN, OR THE

leopard his spots ? ” Jer. xi. 23.

The morality of such a thing ? Morality only had
to do with ruining a girl’s name, or robbery. How
did it concern this ?

So Mr. Meyerbeer kept his ears open. Presently
one of the students said to Bagshot, a young artist :

“ How does the dompteuse come on ? ”

194

THE TRESPASSER.

“ Oh ! I think it’s chic enough. She’s magnificent.
The colour of her skin against the lions was splendid
to-day : a regular rich gold with a sweet stain of red
— like a leaf of maize in September. There’s never
been such a Una. I’ve got my chance ; and if I don’t
pull it off,

‘ Wrap me up in my tarpaulin jacket,

And say a poor buffer lies low ! ’ ”

“ Get the jacket ready,” put in a young French-
man, sneering.

The Englishman’s jaw hardened, but he replied
coolly :

“ What do you know about it ? ”

“ I know enough. The Comte Ploare visits her.”

“How the devil does that concern my painting
her?”

There was iron in Bagshot’s voice.

“ Who says you are painting her ? ”

The insult was conspicuous. Gaston quickly inter-
posed. His clear strong voice rang down the table :

“ Will you let me come and see your canvas some
day soon, Mr. Bagshot ? I remember your ‘ A Passion
in the Desert,’ at the Academy this year. A fine
thing: the leopard was free and strong. As an
Englishman, I am proud to meet you.”

The young Frenchman stared. The quarrel had
passed to a new and unexpected quarter. Gaston’s
large, solid body, strong face, and penetrating eyes

IN WHICH THE PAST IS REPEATED. 195

were not to be sneered out of sight. The Frenchman,
an envious, disappointed artist, had had in his mind
a bloodless duel, to give a fillip to an unacquired
fame. He had, however, been drinking. He flung
an insolent glance to meet Gaston’s steady look, and
said :

“ The cock crows of his dunghill ! ”

Gaston looked at the landlord, then got up calmly
and walked down the table. The Frenchman, ex-
pecting he knew not what, sprang to his feet, snatch-
ing up a knife ; but Gaston was on him like a hawk,
pinioning his arms and lifting him off the ground,
binding his legs too, all so tight that the Frenchman
squealed for breath.

“ Monsieur,” said Gaston to the landlord, “ from
the door or the window ? ”

Pelletier was pale. It was in some respects a quar-
rel of races. For, French and English at the tables
had got up and were eying each other. As to the
immediate outcome of the quarrel, there could be no
doubt. The English and Americans could break the
others to pieces ; but neither wished that. The land-
lord decided the matter :

“ Drop him from this window.”

He pushed a shutter back, and Gaston dropped the
fellow on the hard pavement — a matter of five feet.
The Frenchman got up raging, and made for the
door ; but this time he was met by Pelletier, who gave

196

THE TRESPASSER.

him his hat, and bade him come no more. There was
applause from both English and French. The jour-
nalist chuckled — another column !

Gaston had acted with coolness and common-sense ;
and when he sat down and began talking of the Eng-
lishman’s picture again as if nothing had happened,
the others followed, and the dinner went on cheer-
fully.

Presently another young English painter entered,
and listened to the conversation, which Gaston brought
hack to TJna and the lions. It was his way to force
things to his liking, if possible ; and he wanted to
hear about the woman — why, he did not ask himself.
The new arrival, Fancourt by name, kept looking at
him quizzically. Gaston presently said that he would
visit the menagerie and see this famous dompteuse
that afternoon.

“ She’s a brick ! ” said Bagshot. “ I was in debt,
a year behind with my Pelletier here, and it took all I
got for ‘ The Passion in the Desert ’ to square up. I’d
nothing to go on with. I spent my last sou in visit-
ing the menagerie. There I got an idea. I went to
her, told her how I was fixed, and begged her to give
■ me a chance. By Jingo ! she brought the water to my
eyes. Some think she’s a bit of a devil ; but she can
be a devil of a saint, that’s all I’ve got to say ! ”

“ Zoug-Zoug’s responsible for the devil,” said Fan-
court to Bagshot.

IN WHICH THE PAST IS REPEATED. 197

“ Shut up, Fan,” rejoined Bagshot, hurriedly, and
then whispered to him quickly.

Fancourt sent self-conscious glances down the table
towards Gaston ; and then a young American, newly
come to Paris, said :

w Who’s Zoug-Zoug, and what’s Zoug-Zoug ? ” »

“ It’s milk for babes, youngster,” answered Bagshot
quickly, and changed the conversation.

Gaston saw something strange in the little inci-
dent ; but he presently forgot it for many a day, and
then remembered it for many a day, when the wheel
had spun through a wild arc.

When they rose from the table, Meyerbeer went to
Bagshot, and said :

“ Say, who’s Zoug-Zoug, anyway ? ”

Bagshot coolly replied :

“ I’m acting for another paper. What price ? ”

u Fifty dollars,” in a low voice, eagerly.

Bagshot meditated.

“ H’m, fifty dollars ! Two hundred and fifty francs,
or thereabouts. Beggarly ! ”

“ A hundred, then.”

Bagshot got to his feet, lighting a cigarette.

“Want to have a pretty story against a woman,
and to smutch a man, do you ? Well, I’m hard up ;
I don’t mind gossip among ourselves ; but sell the stuff
to you — I’ll see you damned first ! ”

“ This was said sufficiently loud ; and after that,

198

THE TRESPASSER.

Meyerbeer could not ask Fancourt, so he departed with
Gaston, who courteously dismissed him, to his aston-
ishment and regret, for he had determined to visit the
menagerie with his quarry.

Gaston went to his apartments, and cheerily sum-
moned Jacques.

“ Now, little man, for a holiday ! The menagerie :
lions, leopards, and a grand dompteuse ; and after-
wards dinner with me at the Cafe Blanche. I want a
blow-out of lions and that sort. I’d like to be a lion-
tamer myself for a month, or as long as might be.”

He caught Jacques by the shoulders — he had not
done so since that memorable day at Ridley Court.

“ See, Jacques, we’ll do this every year. — Six
months in England, and three months on the Conti-
nent,— in your France, if you like, — and three months
in the out-of-the-wayest place, where there’ll be big
game. Hidalgos for six months, Goths for the rest.”

A half-hour later they were in the menagerie.
They sat near the doors where the performers entered.
For a long time they watched the performance with
delight, clapping and calling bravo like boys. Pres-
ently the famous dompteuse entered,— Mademoiselle
Victorine, — passing just below Gaston. He looked
down, interested, at the supple, lithe creature making
for the cages of lions in the amphitheatre. The figure
struck him as familiar. Presently the girl turned,
throwing a glance round the theatre. He caught the

IN WHICH THE PAST IS REPEATED. 199

flash of the dark, piercing eyes, the luminous look, the
face unpainted — in its own natural colour : neither
hot health nor paleness, but a thing to bear the light
of day.

“ Andr6e the gipsy ! ” he said in a low tone.

In less than two years this ! Here was fame. A
wanderer, an Ishmael then, her handful of household
goods and her father in the grasp of the Law : to-day,
Mademoiselle Yictorine, queen of animal-tamers ! And
her name associated with the Comte Ploare !

With the Comte Ploare? Had it come to that?
He remembered the look in her face when he hade
her good-bye. Impossible ! Then, immediately he
laughed. Why impossible ? And why should he
bother his head about it ? People of this sort : Made-
moiselle Cerise, Madame Juliette, Mademoiselle Yic-
torine— what were they to him, or. to themselves?

There flashed through his brain three pictures :
when he stood by the bedside of the old dying Esqui-
maux in Labrador, and took a girl’s hand in his;
when among the flowers at Peppingham he heard
Delia say : “ Oh, Gaston ! Gaston ! ” and Alice’s
face at midnight in the moonlit window at Ridley
Court.

How strange this figure — spangled, gaudy, stand-
ing among her lions — seemed by these. To think of
her, his veins thumping thus, was an insult to all
three : to Delia, one unpardonable. And yet he could

200

THE TRESPASSER.

not take his eyes off her. Her performance was splen-
did. He was interested, speculative. She certainly
had flown high ; for, again, why should not a domp-
teuse be a decent woman? And here were money,
fame of a kind, and an occupation that sent his blood
hounding. A dompteur ! — He had tamed moose, and
young mountain lions, and a catamount, and had had
mad hours with pumas and arctic hears ; and he could
understand how even he might easily pass from M. P.
to dompteur. It was not intellectual, but it was
power of a kind ; and it was decent, and healthy, and
infinitely better than playing the Jew in business, or
keeping a tavern, or “ shaving ” notes, and all that.
Truly, the woman was to be admired, for she was earn-
ing an honest living ; and no doubt they lied when
they named her with the Comte Ploare. He kept
coming hack to that — Comte Ploare ! Why could
they not leave these women alone ? Did they think
none of them virtuous ? He would stake his life that
Andree — he would call her that — was as straight as
the sun.

“What do you think of her, Jacques?” he said
suddenly.

“ It is grand. Mon Bleu , she is wonderful — and a
face all fire ! ”

Presently she came out of the cage, followed by
two great lions. She walked round the ring, a hand
on the head of each : one growling, the other purring

IN WHICH THE PAST IS REPEATED. 201

against her, with a ponderous kind of affection. She
talked to them as they went, giving occasionally a
deep purring sound like their own. Her talk never
ceased. She looked at the audience, but only as in a
dream. Her mind was all with the animals. There
was something splendid in it : she, herself, was a no-
ble animal ; and she seemed entirely in place where
she was. The lions were fond of her, and she of them ;
but the first part of her performance had shown that
they could be capricious. A lion’s love is but a lion’s
love after all — and hers likewise, no doubt! The
three seemed as one in their beauty, the woman su-
perbly superior.

Meyerbeer, in a far corner, was still on the trail of
his sensation. He thought that he might get an arti-
cle out of it — with the help of Comte Ploare and
Zoug-Zoug. Who was Zoug-Zoug? He exulted in
her picturesqueness, and he determined to lie in wait.
He thought it a pity that Comte Ploare was not an
Englishman or an American; but it couldn’t be
helped. Yes, she was, as he said to himself, “ a stun-
ner ! ” Meanwhile he watched Gaston, noted his in-
tense interest.

Presently the girl stopped beside the cage. A
chariot was brought out, and the two lions were har-
nessed to it. Then she called out another larger lion,
which came unwillingly at first. She spoke sharply,
and then struck him. He growled, but came on.

202

THE TRESPASSER.

Then she spoke softly to him, and made that peculiar
purr, soft and rich. Now he responded, walked round
her, coming closer, till his body made a half-circle
about her, and his head was at her knees. She
dropped her hand on it. Great applause rang through
the building. This play had been quite accidental.
But there lay one secret of the girl’s success. She
was original ; she depended greatly on the power of
the moment for her best effects, and they came at un-
expected times.

It was at this instant that, glancing round the the-
atre in acknowledgment of the applause, her eyes
rested mechanically on Gaston’s box. There was gen-
erally someone important in that box : from a foreign
prince to a young gentleman whose proudest moment
was to take off his hat in the Bois to the queen of a
lawless court. She had tired of being introduced to
princes. What could it mean to her ? And for the
young bloods, whose greatest regret was that they
could not send forth a daughter of joy into the
Champs Elysee in her carriage, she had ever sent them
about their business. She had no corner of pardon
for them. She kissed her lions, she hugged the lion’s
cub that rode back and forth with her to the menage-
rie day by day — her companion in her modest apart-
ments ; hut sell one of these kisses to a young gentle-
man of Paris, whose ambition was to master all the
vices, and then let the vices master him ! — she had not

IN WHICH THE PAST IS REPEATED. 203

come to that, though, as she said in some bitter mo-
ments, she had come far.

The Comte Ploare — there was nothing in that. A
blas6 man of the world, who had found it all not
worth the bothering about, neither code nor people, —
he saw in this rich impetuous nature a new range of
emotions, a brief return to the time when he tasted an
open strong life in Algiers, in Tahiti. And he would
laugh at the world by marrying her — yes, actually
marrying her, the dompteuse ! Accident had let him
render her a service, not unimportant, once at Ver-
sailles, and he had been so courteous and considerate
afterwards, that she had let him see her occasionally,
but never yet alone. He soon saw that an amour was
impossible. At last he spoke of marriage. She shook
her head. She ought to have been grateful, but she
was not. Why should she be? She did not know
why he wished to marry her ; but, whatever the rea-
son, he was selfish. Well, she would be selfish. She
did not care for him. If she married him, it would
be because she was selfish : because of position, ease ;
for protection in this shameless Paris ; and for a home,
she who had been a wanderer since her birth.

It was mere bargaining. But at last her free, in-
dependent nature revolted. No : she had had enough
of the chain, and the loveless hand of man, for three
months that were burned into her brain — no more !
If ever she loved — all ! But not the right for Comte

204

THE TRESPASSER.

Ploare to demand the affection she gave her lions
freely.

The manager of the menagerie had tried for her
affections, had offered a price for her friendship ; and
failing, had become as good a friend as such a man
could be. She even visited his wife occasionally, and
gave gifts to his children; and the mother trusted
her and told her her trials. And so the thing went
on, and the people talked.

As we said, she turned her eyes to Gaston’s box.
Instantly they became riveted, and then a deep flush
swept slowly up her face and burned into her splendid
hair. Meyerbeer was watching through his opera-
glasses. He gave an exclamation of delight :

“By the holy smoke, here’s something!” he. said
aloud.

For an instant Gaston and the girl looked at each
other intently. He made a slight sign of recognition
with his hand, and then she turned away, gone a little
pale now. She stood looking at her lions, as if trying
to recollect herself. The lion at her feet helped her.
He had a change of temper, and, possibly fretting
under inaction, growled. At once she summoned him
to get into the chariot. He hesitated, but did so.
She put the reins in his paws and took her place be-
hind. Then a robe of purple and ermine was thrown
over her shoulders by an attendant ; she gave a sharp
command, and the lions came round the ring, to wild

IN WHICH THE PAST IS REPEATED. 205

applause. Even a Parisian audience had never seen
anything like this. It was amusing too ; for the
coachman-lion was evidently disgusted with his task,
and growled in a helpless kind of way.

As they passed Gaston’s box, they were very near.
The girl threw one swift glance; hut her face was
well controlled now. She heard, however, a whispered
word come to her :

“ Andree ! ”

A few moments afterwards she retired, and the
performance was in other and less remarkable hands.
Presently the manager himself came, and said that
Mademoiselle Yictorine would be glad to see Mon-
sieur Bel ward if he so wished. Gaston left Jacques,
and went.

Meyerbeer noticed the move, and determined to
see the meeting if possible. There was something in
it, he was sure. He would invent an excuse, and
make his way behind.

Gaston and the manager were in the latter’s rooms
waiting for Yictorine. Presently a messenger came,
saying that Monsieur Belward would find Mademoi-
selle in her dressing-room. Thither Gaston went,
accompanied by the manager, who, however, left him
at the door, nodding good-naturedly to Yictorine, and
inwardly praying that here was no danger to his busi-
ness : Yictorine was a source of great profit ! Yet he
had failed himself, and all others had failed in win-

206

THE TRESPASSER.

ning her, — why should this man succeed, if that was
his purpose ?

There was present an elderly, dark-featured
Frenchwoman, who was always with Victorine, vigi-
lant, protective, loving her as her own daughter.

“ Monsieur ! ” said Andree, a warm colour in her
cheek.

Gaston shook her hand cordially, and laughed.

“ Mademoiselle — Andree ? ”

He looked inquiringly.

“ Yes, to you,” she said.

“You have it all your own way now — isn’t it
so?”

“With the lions, yes. Please sit down. This is
my dear keeper,” she said, touching the woman’s
shoulder. Then, to the woman : “ Annette, you
have heard me speak of this gentleman ? ”

The woman nodded, and modestly touched Gas-
ton’s outstretched hand.

“Monsieur was kind once to my dear Made-
moiselle,” she said.

Gaston cheerily smiled :

“ Nothing, nothing, upon my word ! ”

Presently he continued :

“ Your father, what of him ? ”

She sighed and shivered a little.

“ He died in Auvergne three months after you saw
him.”

IN WHICH THE PAST IS REPEATED. 20 T

11 And you ? ” He waved a hand towards the
menagerie.

“ It is a long story,” she answered, not meeting his
eyes. “ I hated the Romany life. I became an artist’s
model ; tired of that,” — her voice went quickly here,
— “ joined a travelling menagerie, and became what I
am. That in brief.”

“ You have done well,” he said admiringly, his face
glowing.

“lama successful dompteuse,” she replied.

She then asked him who was his companion in the
box. He told her. She insisted on sending for
Jacques. Meanwhile they talked of her profession,
of the animals. She grew eloquent. Jacques arrived,
and suddenly remembered Andree — stammered, was
put at his ease, and dropped into talk with Annette.
Gaston fell into reminiscences of wild game, and
talked intelligently, acutely of her work. He must
wait, she said, until the performance closed, and then
she would show him the animals as a happy family.
Thus a half-hour went by.

Meanwhile, Meyerbeer had asked the manager to
take him to Mademoiselle; but was told that Yictorine
never gave information to journalists, and would not
be interviewed. Besides, she had a visitor. Yes,
Meyerbeer knew it — Mr. Gaston Belward; but that
did not matter. The manager thought it did matter.
Then, with an idea of the future, Meyerbeer asked to

208

THE TRESPASSER.

be shown the menagerie thoroughly, — he would write
it up for England and America.

And so it happened that there were two sets of
people inspecting the menagerie after the perform-
ance. Andree let a dozen of the animals out — lions,
leopards, a tiger, and a bear, — and they gambolled
round her playfully, sometimes quarrelling with each
other, but brought up smartly by her voice and a
little whip, which she always carried — the only sign of
professional life about her, though there was ever
a dagger hid in her dress. For the rest, she looked a
splendid gipsy.

Gaston suddenly asked if he might visit her. At
the moment she was playing with the young tiger.
She paused, was silent, preoccupied. The tiger, feel-
ing neglected, caught her hand with its paw. Gaston
whipped out his handkerchief, and staunched the
blood. She wrapped the handkerchief quickly round
her hand, and then, recovering herself, ordered the
animals back into their cages. They trotted away,
and the attendant locked them up. Meanwhile
Jacques had picked up and handed to Gaston a let-
ter, dropped when he drew out his handkerchief. It
was one received two days before from Delia Gasgoyne.
He had a pang of confusion, and hastily put it into
his pocket.

Up to this time there had been no confusion in his
mind. He was going back to do his duty ; to marry

IN WHICH THE PAST IS REPEATED. 209

the girl, union with whom would be an honour ; to
take his place in his kingdom. He had had no min-
ute’s doubt of that. It was necessary, and it should
be done. The girl ? Did he not admire her, honour
her, care for her ? Why, then, this confusion ?

Andree said to him that he might come the next
morning for breakfast. She said it just as the man-
ager and Meyerbeer passed her. Meyerbeer heard it,
and saw the look in the faces of both : in hers, be-
wildered, warm, penetrating ; in Gaston’s, eager, glow-
ing, bold, with a distant kind of trouble.

Here was a thickening plot for Paul Pry. He
hugged himself. But who was Zoug-Zoug? If he
could hut get at that ! He asked the manager, who
said he did not know. He asked a dozen men that
evening, but none knew. He would ask Ian Belward.
What a fool not to have thought of him at first ! He
knew all the gossip of Paris, and was always com-
municative— but was he, after all ? He remembered
now that the painter had a way of talking at discre-
tion : he had never got any really good material from
him. But he would try him in this.

So, as Gaston and Jacques travelled down the
Boulevard Montparnasse, Meyerbeer was not far be-
hind.

The journalist found Ian Belward at home, in a
cynical indolent mood.

“ Wherefore Meyerbeer? ” he said, as he motioned

210

THE TRESPASSER.

the other to a chair, and pushed oyer vermouth and
cigarettes.

“ To ask a question.”

“ One question ? Come, that’s penance ! Aren’t
you lying as usual ? ”

“ No ; one only. I’ve got the rest of it.”

“ Got the rest of it, eh ? Nasty mess you’ve got,
whatever it is, I’ll be bound. What a nice mob you
press fellows are — wholesale scavengers ! ”

“ That’s all right. — This vermouth is good enough !
Well, will you answer my question?”

“Possibly, if it’s not personal. But Lord knows
where your insolence may run ! You may ask if I’ll
introduce you to a decent London club ! ”

Meyerbeer flushed at last.

“ You’re rubbing it in,” he said angrily.

He did wish to be introduced to a good London
club.

“ The question isn’t personal, I guess. It’s this :
Who’s Zoug-Zoug ? ”

Smoke had come trailing out of Belward’s nose, his
head thrown back, his eyes on the ceiling. It stopped,
and came out of his mouth in one long, straight whiff.
Then the painter brought his head to a natural posi-
tion slowly, and looking with a furtive nonchalance at
Meyerbeer, said :

“ Who is what ? ”

“ Who’s Zoug-Zoug ? ”

IN WHICH THE PAST IS REPEATED. 211

“ That is your one solitary question, is it ? ”

“ That’s it.”

“Very well. Now, I’ll be scavenger. What is the
story ? Who is the woman ? — for you’ve got a woman
in it, that’s certain ! ”

“ Will you tell me, then, whether you know Zoug-
Zoug?”

“Yes.”

“ The woman is Mademoiselle Yictorine, the
dompteuse.”

“ Oh ! I’ve not seen her yet. She burst upon Paris
while I was away. Now, straight : no lies : who are
the others ? ”

Meyerbeer hesitated; for, of course, he did not
wish to speak of Gaston at this stage in the game.
But he said :

“ Comte Ploare — and Zoug-Zoug.”

“ Why don’t you tell me the truth ? ”

“ I do. Now, who is Zoug-Zoug?”

“ Bind out ! ”

“ You said you’d tell me.”

“ No. I said I’d tell you if I knew Zoug-Zoug. I
do.”

“ That’s all you’ll tell me ? ”

“ That’s all. And see, scavenger, take my advice
and let Zoug-Zoug alone. He’s a man of influence ;
and he’s possessed of a devil. He’ll make you sorry,
if you meddle with him ! ”

212

THE TRESPASSER.

He rose, and Meyerbeer did the same, saying :

“ You’d better tell me.”

“Now, don’t bother me. Drink your vermouth,
take that bundle of cigarettes, and hunt Zoug-Zoug
elsewhere. If you find him, let me know. Good-
bye!”

Meyerbeer went out furious. The treatment had
been too heroic.

“ I’ll give a sweet savour to your family name ! ”
he said with an oath, as he shook his fist at the closed
door.

Ian Belward sat back and looked at the ceiling
reflectively.

“ H’m ! ” he said at last. “ What the devil does
this mean? Which one is it? Not Andree, surely
not Andree! Yet I wasn’t called Zoug-Zoug before
that. It was Bagshot’s insolent inspiration at Au-
vergne. Well, well ! ”

He got up, drew over a portfolio of sketches, took
out two or three, put them in a row against a divan,
sat down, and looked at them half quizzically.

“ It was rough on you, Andree ; but you were hard
to please, and I am constant to but one. Yet, begad,
you had solid virtues; and I wish, for your sake, I
had been a different kind of fellow. Refused money,
too; didn’t threaten; and left between the days.
Well, well, we’ll meet again some time, and then we’ll
be good friends, no doubt. So it goes ! ”

IN WHICH THE PAST IS REPEATED. 213

He turned away from the sketches and picked up
some illustrated newspapers. In one was a portrait.
He looked at it, then at the sketches again and again.

“ There’s a resemblance,” he said. “ But no, it’s
not possible. Andree — Mademoiselle Yictorine ! That
would be amusing. I’d go to-morrow and see, if I
weren’t off to Fontainebleau. But there’s no hurry :
when I come back will do.”

CHAPTER XV.

WHEREIN- IS SEEN THE OLD ADAH AND THE
GARDEN.

At Ridley Court and Peppingham all was serene
to the eye. Letters had come to the Court at least
once every two weeks from Gaston, and the minds of
the Baronet and his wife were at ease. They even
went so far as to hope that he would influence his
uncle ; for it was clear to them both that whatever
Gaston’s faults were, they were agreeably different
from Ian’s. His fame and promise were sweet to
their nostrils. Indeed, the young man had brought
the wife and husband nearer than they had been since
Robert vanished over-sea. Each had blamed the other
in an indefinite, secret way; but here was Robert’s
son, on whom they could lavish — as they did — their
affection, long since forfeited by Ian. Finally, one
day, after a little burst of thanksgiving, on getting an
excellent letter from Gaston, telling of his simple,
amusing life in Paris, Sir William sent him one thou-
sand pounds, begging him to buy a small yacht, or to
do what he pleased with it.

“ A very remarkable man, my dear,” Sir William

THE OLD ADAM AND THE GARDEN. 215

said, as he enclosed the cheque. “ Excellent wisdom
— excellent ! ”

“ Who could have guessed that he knew so much
about the poor and the East End, and all those social
facts and figures?” Lady Bel ward answered com-
placently.

“ An unusual mind, with a singular taste for his-
tory, and yet a deep observation of the present. I
don’t know when and how he does it. I really do not
know.”

“ It is nice to think that Lord Faramond approves
of him ! ”

“ Most noticeable. And we have not been a Par-
liamentary family since the first Charles’ time. And
then it was a Sir Gaston ! Singular — quite singular !
Coincidences of looks and character. Nature plays
strange games. Reproduction — reproduction ! ”

“ The Pail Mall Gazette says that Lord Faramond
thinks he may yet reach the Treasury Bench.”

Sir William was abstracted. He was thinking of
that afternoon in Gaston’s bedroom, when his grand-
son had acted, before Lady Dargan and Cluny Vosse,
Sir Gaston’s scene with Buckingham.

“Really, most mysterious, most unaccountable.
But it’s one of the virtues of having a descent. When
it is most needed, it counts, it counts.”

“ Against the half-breed mother ! ” Lady Bel ward
added.

216

THE TRESPASSER.

“ Quite so, against the — was it Cree or Blackfoot ?
I’ve heard him speak of both, but which is in him I
do not remember.”

“ It is very painful ; but, poor fellow, it is not his
fault, and we ought to be content.’’

“ Indeed, it gives him great originality. Our old
families need refreshing now and then.”

“ Ah, yes, I said so to Mrs. Gasgoyne the other day,
and she replied that the refreshment might prove in-
toxicating. Heine was always rude.”

Truth is, Mrs. Gasgoyne was not quite satisfied.
That very day she said to her husband :

“You men always stand by each other; but I
know you, and you know that I know.”

“ ‘ Thou knowest the secrets of our hearts ’ ; well,
then, you know how we love you. So, be merciful.”

“ Nonsense, Warren ! I tell you he oughtn’t to
have gone when he did. He has the wild man in
him, and I am not satisfied.”

“ What do you want — me to play the spy ? ”

“Warren, you’re a fool! What do I want? I
want the first of September to come quickly, that we
may have him with us. With Delia he must go
straight. She influences him, he admires her — which
is better than mere love. Away from her just now,

who can tell what mad adventure ! You see, he

has had the curb so long ! ”

But in a day or two there came a letter — unusually

THE OLD ADAM AND THE GARDEN. 217

long for Gaston — to Mrs. Gasgoyne herself. It was
simple, descriptive, with a dash of epigram. It ac-
knowledged that he had felt the curb, and wanted a
touch of the unconventional. It spoke of Ian Bel-
ward in a dry phrase, and it asked for the date of the
yacht’s arrival at Gibraltar.

“ Warren, the man is still sensible,” she said.
“ This letter is honest. He is much a heathen at
heart, but I believe he hasn’t given Delia cause to blush
— and that’s a good deal ! Dear me, I am fond of the
fellow — he is so clever. But clever men are trying.”

As for Delia, like every sensible English girl, she
enjoyed herself in the time of youth, drinking in de-
lightedly the interest attaching to Gaston’s betrothed.
His letters had been regular, kind yet not emotionally
affectionate, interesting, uncommon. He had a knack
of saying as much in one page as most people did in
five. Her imagination was not great, but he stimu-
lated it. If he wrote a pungent line on Daudet or
Whistler, on Montaigne or Fielding, she was stimu-
lated to know them. One day he sent her Whitman’s
Leaves of Grass , which he had picked up in New
York on his way to England. This startled her. She
had never heard of Whitman. To her he seemed
coarse, incomprehensible, ungentlemanly. She could
not understand how Gaston could say beautiful things
about Montaigne and about Whitman too. She had
no conception how he had in him the strain of that

218

THE TRESPASSER.

first Sir Gaston Belward, and was also the son of a
half-heathen.

He interested her all the more. Her letters were
hardly so fascinating to him. She was beautifully cor-
rect, but she could not make a sentence breathe. He
was grateful, but nothing stirred in him. He could
live without her — that he knew regretfully. But he
did his part with sincere intention.

That was up to the day when he saw Andree as
Mademoiselle Victorine. Then came a swift change.
Day after day he visited her, always in the presence
of Annette. Soon they dined often together, still
in Annette’s presence. At last one day they dined
alone.

The Comte Ploare came no more ; he had received
his dismissal. Occasionally Gaston visited the mena-
gerie, but generally after the performance, when Vic-
torine had a half-hour’s or an hour’s romp with her
animals. This was a pleasant time to Gaston. The
wild life in him responded.

These were hours when the girl was quite naive
and natural, when she spent herself in ripe enjoy-
ment— almost child-like, healthy. At other times
there was an indefinable something which Gaston had
not noticed in England. But then he had only seen
her once. She, too, saw something in him unnoticed
before. It was on his tongue a hundred times to tell
her that that something was Delia Gasgoyne. He did

THE OLD ADAM AND THE GARDEN. 219

not. Perhaps because it seemed so grotesque, perhaps
because it was easier to drift. Besides, as he said to
himself, he wTould soon go to join the yacht at Gi-
braltar, and all this would be over — over. All this?
All what ? A gipsy, a dompteuse — what was she to
him ? She interested him, he liked her, and she liked
him, but there had been nothing more between them.
Near as he was to her now, he very often saw her in
his mind’s eye as she passed over Ridley Common,
looking towards him, her eyes shaded by her hand.

She, too, had continually said to herself that this
man could be nothing to her — nothing, never ! Yet,
why not? Comte Ploare had offered her his hand.
But she knew what had been in Comte Ploare’s mind.
Gaston Belward was different — he had befriended her
father. She had not singular scruples regarding men,
for she despised most of them. She was not a Made-
moiselle Cerise, nor a Madame Juliette, though they
were higher on the plane of Art than she ; or so the
world put it. She had not known a man who had
not, one time or another, shown himself common or
insulting. But since the first moment she had seen
Gaston, he had treated her as a lady.

A lady ? She had seen enough to smile at that.
She knew that she hadn’t it in her veins, that she
was very much an actress, except in this man’s com-
pany, when she was mostly natural— as natural as one
can be who has a painful secret. They had talked

220

THE TRESPASSER.

together — for how many hours? She knew exactly.
And he had never descended to that which — she felt
instinctively — he would not have shown to the ladies
of his English world. She knew what ladies were.
In her first few weeks in Paris, her fame mounting,
she had lunched with some distinguished people, who
entertained her as they would have done one of her
lions, if that were possible. She understood. She
had a proud, passionate nature ; she rebelled at this.
Invitations were declined at first on pink note-paper
with gaudy flowers in a corner, afterwards on cream-
laid vellum, when she saw what the great folk did.

And so the days went on, he telling her of his life
from his boyhood up — all but the one thing! But
that one thing she came to know, partly by instinct,
partly by something he accidentally dropped, partly
from something Jacques once said to him. Well,
what did it matter to her? He would go back; she
would remain. It didn’t matter. — Yet, why should
she lie to herself ? It did matter. And why should
she care about that girl in England? She was not
supposed to know. The other had everything in her
favour; what had Andree the gipsy girl, or Made-
moiselle Yictorine, the dompteuse ?

One Sunday evening, after dining together, she
asked him to take her to see Saracen. It was a long-
standing promise. She had never seen him riding;
for their hours did not coincide until the late after-

TI1E OLD ADAM AND THE GARDEN. 221

noon or evening. Taking Annette, they went to his
new apartments. He had furnished a large studio
as a sitting-room, not luxuriantly but pleasantly. It
opened into a pretty little garden, with a few plants
and trees. They sat there while Jacques went for the
horse. Next door a number of students were singing
a song of the boulevards. It was followed by one in
a woman’s voice, sweet and clear and passionate, piti-
fully reckless. It was, as if in pure contradiction, the
opposite of the other, — simple, pathetic. At first
there were laughing interruptions from the students ;
but the girl kept on, and soon silence prevailed, save
for the voice :

“ And when the wine is dry upon the lip,

And when the flower is broken by the hand,

And when I see the white sails of thy ship
Fly on, and leave me there upon the sand : —

Think you that I shall weep ? Nay, I shall smile :

The wine is drunk, the flower it is gone, —

One weeps not when the days no more beguile,—

How shall the tear-drops gather in a stone ? ”

When it was ended, Andree, who had listened in-
tently, drew herself up with a little shudder. She sat
long, looking into the garden, the cub playing at her
feet. Gaston did not disturb her. He got refresh-
ments and put them on the table, rolled a cigarette,
and regarded the scene. Her knee was drawn up
slightly in her hands, her hat was off, her rich brown
hair fell loosely about her head, framing it, her dark

222

THE TRESPASSER.

eyes glowed under her bent brows. The lion’s cub
crawled up on the divan, and thrust its nose under
an arm. Its head clung to her waist. Who was it ?
thought Gaston. Delilah, Cleopatra — who ? She was
lost in thought. She remained so until the garden
door opened, and Jacques entered with Saracen.

She looked. Suddenly she came to her feet with
a cry of delight, and ran out towards the horse.
There was something essentially childlike in her,
something also painfully wild — an animal, and a
philosopher, and twenty-three !

Jacques put out his hand as he had done with
Mademoiselle Cerise.

“ No, no ; he is savage ! ”

“Nonsense!” she rejoined, and came closer.

Gaston watched, interested. He guessed what she
would do.

“A horse!” she added. — “You have seen my
lions ! Leave him free : stand away from him.”

Her words were peremptory, and Jacques obeyed.
The horse stood alone, a hoof pawing the ground.
Presently it sprang away, then half-turned towards
the girl, and stood still. She kept talking to him and
calling softly, making a coaxing, animal-like sound,
as she always did with lions.

She stepped forward a little and paused. The
horse suddenly turned straight towards her, came over
slowly, and, with arched neck, dropped his head on

THE OLD ADAM AND THE GARDEN. 223

her shoulder. She felt the folds of his neck and
kissed him. He followed her about the garden like a
dog. She brought him to Gaston, looked up, and said
with a teasing look :

“ I have conquered him : he is mine ! ”

Gaston looked her in her eyes.

“ He is yours.”

“ And you ? ”

“ He is mine.” His looked burned into her soul —
how deep, how joyful !

She turned away, her face going suddenly pale.
She kept the horse for some time, but at last gave
him up again to Jacques. Gaston stepped from the
doorway into the garden and met her. It was now
dusk. Annette was inside. They walked together in
silence for a time. Presently she drew close to him.
He felt his veins bounding. Her hand slid into his
arm, and, dark as it was, he could see her eyes lifting
to his, shining, profound. They had reached the end
of the garden, and now turned to come back again.

Suddenly he said, his eyes holding hers :

“ The horse is yours — and mine ! ”

She stood still ; but he could see her bosom heav-
ing hard. She threw up her head with a sound half
sob, half laugh. . . .

“ You are mad ! ” she said a moment afterwards,
as she lifted her head from his breast.

He laughed softly, catching her cheek to his.

224

THE TRESPASSER.

“ Why be sane ? It was to be.”

“ The gipsy and the gentleman ? ”

“ Gipsies all ! ”

“ And the end of it ? ”

“ Do you not love me, Andree?”

She caught her hands over her eyes.

“ I do not know what it is — only that it is madness !
I see, oh ! I see a hundred things ! ”

Her hot eyes were on space.

“ What do you see ? ” he urged.

She gave a sudden cry :

“ I see you at my feet — dead ! ”

“ Better than you at mine, dearest.”

“ Let us go,” she said hurriedly.

“ Wait,” he whispered.

They talked for a little time. Then they entered
the studio. Annette was asleep in her chair. Andree
waked her, and they bade Gaston good -night.

CHAPTER XVI.

WHEREIN LOVE KNOWS NO LAW SAVE THE MAN’S
WILL.

In another week it was announced that Mademoi-
selle Victorine would take a month’s holiday ; to the
sorrow of her chief, and to the delight of Mr. Meyer-
beer, who had not yet discovered Zoug-Zoug, though
he had a pretty scandal well-nigh brewed.

Count Ploare was no more, Gaston Belward was.
Zoug-Zoug was in the country at Fontainebleau, work-
ing at his picture. He had left on the morning after
Gaston discovered Andree. He had written, asking
his nephew to come for some final sittings. Possibly,
he said, Mademoiselle Cerise and others would be down
for a Sunday. Gaston had not gone, had briefly de-
clined. His uncle shrugged his shoulders, and went
on with other work. It would end in his having to go
to Paris and finish the picture there, he said. Per-
haps the youth was getting into mischief ? So much
the better. He took no newspapers. — What did an
artist need of them ? He did not even read the notices
sent by a press-cutting agency. He had a model with

226

THE TRESPASSER.

him. She amused him for the time, but it was un-
satisfactory working on “ The King of Ys ” from pho-
tographs. He loathed it, and gave it up.

One evening Gaston and Andree met at the Gare
Montparnasse. Jacques was gone on, but Annette was
there. Meyerbeer was there also, at a safe distance.
He saw Gaston purchase tickets, arrange his baggage,
and enter the train. He passed the compartment,
looking in. Besides the three, there was a priest and a
young soldier.

Gaston saw him, and guessed what brought him
there. He had an impulse to get out and shake him
as would Andree’s cub a puppy. But the train moved
off. Meyerbeer found Gaston’s porter. A franc did
the business.

“ Houarnenez, for Audierne, Brittany,” was the
legend written in Meyerbeer’s note-book. And after
that : “ J ourney twenty hours — change at Rennes, Re-
don, and Quimpere.”

“ Too far. I’ve enough for now,” said Meyerbeer,
chuckling, as he walked away. “ But I’d give five
hundred to know who Zoug-Zoug is. I’ll make an-
other try.”

So he held his scandal back for a while yet. Of
the colony at the H6tel St. Malo, not one of the three
who knew would tell him. Bagshot had sworn the
others to secrecy.

Jacques had gone on with the horses. He was to

LOVE KNOWS NO LAW SAVE MAN’S WILL. 227

rent a house, or get rooms at a hotel. He did very
well. The horses were stalled at the Hotel de France.
He had rented an old chateau perched upon a hill,
with steps approaching, steps flanking; near it
strange narrow alleys, leading where one cared not to
search ; a garden of pears and figs, and grapes, and
innumerable flowers and an arbour ; a pavilion, all
windows, over an entrance-way, with a shrine in it —
a be-starred shrine below it ; bare floors, simple furni-
ture, primitiveness at every turn.

Gaston and Andree came, of choice, with a courier
in a racketing old diligence from Douarnenez, and
they laughed with delight, tired as they were, at the
new quarters. It must be a gipsy kind of existence
at the most.

There were rooms for Jacques and Annette, who
at once set to work with the help of a little Breton
maid. J acques had not ordered a dinner at the hotel,
but had got in fresh fish, lobsters, chickens, eggs, and
other necessaries ; and all was ready for a meal which
could be got in an hour.

Jacques had now his hour of happiness. He
knew not of these morals — they were beyond him ;
but after a cheerful dinner in the pavilion, with an
omelette made by Andree herself, Annette went to
her room and cried herself to sleep. She was civilised,
poor soul ! and here they were a stone’s throw from
the cure and the church ! Gaston and Andree, re-

228

THE TRESPASSER.

freshed, travelled down the long steps to the village,
over the place , along the quay, to the lighthouse and
the beach, through crowds of sardine-fishers and sim-
ple hard-tongued Bretons. Cheerful, buoyant at din-
ner, there now came upon the girl an intense quiet
and fatigue. She stood and looked long at the sea.
Gaston tried to rouse her.

“ This is your native Brittany, Andree ? ” he said.
She pointed far over the sea :

“ Near that light at Penmark I was born.”

“ Can you speak the Breton language ? ”

“ Far worse than you speak Parisian French.”

He laughed. “ You are so little like these people ! ”
She had vanity. That had been part of her life.
Her beauty had brought trade when she was a gipsy ;
she had been the admired of Paris : she was only
twenty-three. Presently she became restless, and
shrank from him. Her eyes had a flitting hunted
look. Once they met his with a wild sort of pleading
or revolt, he could not tell which, and then were con-
tinually turned away. If either could have known
how hard the little dwarf of sense and memory was
trying to tell her something !

This new phase stunned him. What did it mean ?
He touched her hand. It was hot, and withdrew
from his. He put his arm around her, and she
shivered, cringed. But then she was a woman, he
thought. He had met one unlike any he had ever

LOVE KNOWS NO LAW SAVE MAN’S WILL. 229

known. He would wait. He would be patient. Would
she come — home ? She turned passively and took his
arm. He talked, but he knew he was talking poorly,
and at last he became silent also. But when they
came to the steep steps leading to the chateau, he
lifted her in his arms, carried her to the house, and
left her at their chamber-door.

Then he went to the pavilion to smoke. He had
no wish to think — at least of anything but the girl.
It was not a time for retrospect, but to accept a situ-
ation. The die had been cast. He had followed
what ? — his nature, his instincts. The consequence ?

He heard Andree’s voice. He went to her.

The next morning they were in the garden walk-
ing about. They had been speaking, but now both
were silent. At last he turned again to her.

“ Andree, who was the other man ? ” he asked
quietly, but with a strange troubled look in his eyes.

She shrank away astonished, confused, a kind of
sickness in her eyes.

“ What does it matter ? ” she said.

“ Of course, of course,” he returned in a low,
nerveless tone.

They were silent for a long time. Meanwhile, she
seemed to beat up a feverish cheerfulness. At last
she said :

“ Where do we go this afternoon, Gaston ? ”

“ We will see,” he replied.

230

THE TRESPASSER.

The day passed, another, and another. The same :
she shrank from him, was impatient, agitated, un-
happy, went out alone. Annette saw, and mourned,
entreated, prayed ; Jacques was miserable. There was
no joyous passion to redeem the situation for which
Gaston had risked so much.

They rode, they took excursions in fishing-boats
and little sail-boats. Andree entered into these with
zest : talked to the- sailors, to Jacques, caressed chil-
dren, and was not indifferent to the notice she
attracted in the village ; but was obviously distrait.
Gaston was patient — and unhappy. So, this was the
merchandise for which he had bartered all ! But he
had a will, he was determined; he had sowed, he
would reap his harvest to the useless stubble.

“ Do you wish to go back to your work ? ” he said
quietly, once.

“ I have no work,” she answered apathetically.

He said no more just then.

The days and weeks went by. The situation was
impossible : not to be understood. Gaston made his
final move. He hoped that perhaps a forced crisis
might bring about a change. If it failed — he knew
not what !

She was sitting in the garden below, — he alone in
the window, smoking. A bundle of letters and papers,
brought by the postman that evenihg, were beside
him. He would not open them yet. He felt that

LOVE KNOWS NO LAW SAVE MAN’S WILL. 231

there was trouble in them — he saw phrases, sentences
flitting past him. But he would play this other bitter
game out first. He let them lie. He heard the bells
in the church ringing the village commerce done — it
was nine o’clock. The picture of that other garden
in Paris came to him : that night when he had
first taken this girl into his arms. She sat below
talking to Annette and singing a little Breton
chanson :

“ Parvondt varbondt anan oun,

Et die don la lire !

Parvondt varbondt anan oun,

Et die don la, la ! ”

He called down to her presently.

“ Andree ! ”

“Yes.”

“ Will you come up for a moment, please ? ”

“ Surely.”

She came up, leaving the room-door open, and
bringing the cub with her. He called Jacques.

“ Take the cub to its quarters, Jacques,” he said,
quietly.

She seemed about to protest, but sat back and
watched him. He shut the door — locked it. Then
he came and sat down before her.

“ Andree,” he said, “ this is all impossible.”

“ What is impossible ? ”

“ You know well. I am not a mere brute. The
only thing that can redeem this life is affection.”

232

THE TRESPASSER.

“ That is true,” she said, coldly. “ What then ? ”

“ You do not redeem it. We must part.”

She laughed fitfully. “ We must ? ”

She leaned towards him.

“ To-morrow evening you will go back to Paris.
To-night we part, however: that is, our relations
cease.”

“ I shall go from here when it pleases me, Gas-
ton ! ”

His voice came low and stern, but courteous :

“ You must go when I tell you. Do you think I
am the weaker ? ”

He could see her colour flying, her fingers lacing
and interlacing.

“ Aren’t you afraid to tell me that ? ” she said.

“Afraid? Of my life — you mean that? That
you will be as common as that? No : you will do as
I tell you.”

He fixed his eyes on hers, and held them. She
sat, looking. Presently she tried to take her eyes
away. She could not. She shuddered and shrank.

He withdrew his eyes for a moment.

“ You will go? ” he asked.

“It makes no difference,” she answered; then
added sharply : “ Who are you, to look at me like
that, to ! ”

She paused.

“ I am your master ! ”

LOVE KNOWS NO LAW SAVE MAN’S WILL. 233

He rose. “ Good-night,” he said, at the door, and
went out.

He heard the key turn in the lock. He had for-
gotten his papers and letters. It did not matter.
He would read them when she was gone — if she did
go. He was far from sure that he had succeeded.
He went to bed in another room, and was soon
asleep.

He was "waked in the very early morning by feel-
ing a face against his, wet, trembling.

“ What is it, Andree ? ” he asked.

Her arms ran round his neck.

“ Oh,mon amour ! Mon adore! Je t'aime! Je
faime ! ”

In the evening of this day she said she knew not
how it was, but on that first evening in Audierne
there suddenly came to her a strange terrible feeling,
which seemed to dry up all the springs of her desire
for him. She could not help it. She had fought
against it, but it was no use ; yet she knew that she
could not leave him. After he had told her to go, she
had had a bitter struggle : now tears, now anger, and
a wish to hate. At last she fell asleep. When she
awoke she had changed, she was her old self, as in
Paris, when she had first confessed her love. She felt
that she must die if she did not go to him. All the
first passion returned, the passion that began on the
common at Ridley Court.

234

THE TRESPASSER.

“ And now — now,” she said, “ I know that I can-
not live without you.”

It seemed so. Her nature was emptying itself.
Gaston had got the merchandise for which he had
given a price yet to be known.

“ You asked me of the other man,” she said. “ I
cannot tell you. Make me. You can.”

“ Hot now,” he said. “ You loved him ? ”

“ Ho — dear God, no ! ” she answered.

An hour after, when she was in her room, he
opened the little bundle of correspondence. — A memo-
randum with money from his bankers. A letter from
Delia, and also one from Mrs. Gasgoyne, saying that
they expected to meet him at Gibraltar on a certain
day, and asking why he had not written ; Delia with
sorrowful reserve, Mrs. Gasgoyne with impatience.
His letters had missed them — he had written on
leaving Paris, saying that his plans were indefinite,
but he would write them definitely soon. After he
came to Audierne it seemed impossible to write. How
could he? Ho, let the American journalist do it.
Better so. Better himself in the worst light, with the
full penalty, than his own confession — in itself an
insult. So, it had gone on.

He slowly tore up the letters. The next were from
his grandfather and grandmother — they did not know
yet. He could not read them. A few loving sen-
tences, and then he said :

LOVE KNOWS NO LAW SAVE MAN’S WILL. 235

“ What’s the good ! Better not ! ”

He tore them up also.

Another — from his uncle. It was brief :

“ You’ve made a sweet mess of it, Cadet. It’s in all the pa-
pers to-day. Meyerbeer telegraphed it to New York and London.
I’ll probably come down to see you. I want to finish my picture
on the site of the old City of Ys, there at Point du Raz. Your
girl can pose with you. I’ll do all I can to clear the thing up.
But a British M. P. — that’s a tough pill for Clapham I ”

Gaston’s foot tapped the floor angrily. He scat-
tered the pieces of the letter at his feet. Now for the
newspapers. He opened Le Petit Journal , Gil Bias ,
Galignani, and the New York Tom-Tom , one by one.
Yes, it was there, with pictures of himself and Andree.
A screaming sensation. Extracts, too, from the Eng-
lish papers by telegram. He read them all unflinch-
ingly. There was one paragraph which he did not
understand :

“ There was a previous lover, unknown to the public, called
Zoug-Zoug.”

He remembered that day at the Hotel St. Malo !

Well, the bolt was shot : the worst was over. Quid
ref ert ? Justify himself ?

Certainly, to all but Delia Gasgoyne.

Thousands of men did the same — did it in cold
biood, without one honest feeling. He did it, at least
under a powerful influence. He could not help hut
smile now at the thought of how he had filled both sides

236

THE TRESPASSER.

of the equation. On his father’s side, bringing down the
mad record from Naseby ; on his mother’s, true to the
heathen, by following his impulses — sacred to primi-
tive man, justified by spear, arrow, and a strong arm.
Why sheet home this as a scandal ? How did they —
the libellers — know but what he had married the girl ?

Exactly. He would see to that. He would play
his game with open sincerity now. He could have
wished secrecy for Delia Gasgoyne, and for his grand-
father and grandmother, — he was nqt wilfully brutal,
— but otherwise he had no shame at all ; he would
stand openly for his right. Better one honest passion
than a life of deception and miserable compromise. A
British M. P. ? — He had thrown away his reputation,
said the papers. By this ? — The girl was no man’s
wife, he no woman’s husband !

Marry her? Yes, he would marry her ; she should
be his wife. His people ? It was a pity. Poor old
people — they would fret and worry. He had been
selfish, had not thought of them? Well, who could
foresee this outrage of journalism? The luck had
been dead against him. Did he not know plenty of
men in London — he was going to say the Commons,
but he was fairer to the Commons than it, as a body,
would be to him — who did much worse ? These had
escaped : the hunters had been after him. What
would he do ? Take the whip ? He got to his feet
with an oath. Take the whip! Never — never! He

LOVE KNOWS NO LAW SAVE MAN’S WILL. 237

would fight this thing tooth and nail. Had he come to
England to let them use him for a sensation only— a
sequence of surprises, to end in a tragedy, all for the
furtive pleasure of the British breakfast- table ? No,
by the Eternal ! What had the first Gaston done ?
He had fought — fought Yilliers and others, and had
held up his head beside his King and Eupert till the
hour of Naseby.

When the summer was over he would return to
Paris, to London. The journalist — punish him? No ;
too little — a product of his time. But the British
people he would fight, and he would not give up
Eidley Court. He could throw the game over when
it was all his, but never when it was going dead
against him.

That speech in the Commons? He remembered
gladly that he had contended for conceptions of social
miseries according to surrounding influences of growth
and situation. He had not played the hypocrite.

No, not even with Delia. He had acted honestly
at the beginning, and afterwards he had done what he
could so long as he could. It was inevitable that she
must be hurt, even if he had married, not giving her
what he had given this dompteuse. After all, was it
so terrible ? It could not affect her much in the eyes
of the world. And her heart? He did not flatter
himself. Yet he knew that it would be the thing —
the fallen idol — that would grieve her more than

238

THE TRESPASSER.

thought of the man. He wished that he could have
spared her, in the circumstances. But it had all
come too suddenly: it was impossible. He had
spared, he could spare, nobody. There was the whole
situation.

What now to do? — To remain here while it pleased
them, then Paris, then London for his fight.

Three days went round. There were idle hours by
the sea, little excursions in a sail- boat to Penmark,
and at last to Point du Raz. It was a beautiful day,
with a gentle breeze, and the point was glorified. The
boat ran in lightly between the steep dark shore and
the comb of reef that looked like a host of stealthy
pumas crumbling the water. They anchored in the
Bay des Trepasses. An hour on shore exploring the
caves, and lunching, and then they went back to the
boat, accompanied by a Breton sailor, who had acted
as guide.

Gaston lay reading, — they were in the shade of the
cliff, — while Andree listened to the Breton tell the
legends of the coast. At length Gaston’s attention
was attracted. The old sailor was pointing to the
shore, and speaking in bad French.

“ Voila , madame, where the City of Ys stood long
before the Bretons came. It was a foolish ride.”

“ I do not know the story. Tell me.”

“ There are two or three, but mine is the oldest.
A flood came — sent by the gods, for the woman was

LOVE KNOWS NO LAW SAVE MAN’S WILL. 239

impious. The king must ride with her into the sea
and leave her there, himself to come hack, and so save
the city.”

The sailor paused to scan the sea — something had
struck him. He shook his head. Gaston was watch-
ing Andree from behind his book.

“Well, well,” she said, impatiently, “ what then?
What did he do ? ”

“ The king took up the woman, and rode into the
sea as far as where you see the great white stone— it
has been there ever since. There he had a fight — not
with the woman, but in his heart. He turned to the
people, and cried : * Dry be your streets, and as ashes
your eyes for your king ! ’ And then he rode on with
the woman till they saw him no more — never ! ”

Andree said instantly :

“ That was long ago. Now the king would ride
back alone.”

She did not look at Gaston, but she knew that his
eyes were on her. He closed the book, got up, came
forward to the sailor, who was again looking out to
sea, and said carelessly over his shoulder :

“ Men who lived centuries ago would act the same
now, if they were here.”

Her response seemed quite as careless as his :

“ How do you know ? ”

“ Perhaps I had an innings then ! ” he answered,
smiling whimsically.

240

THE TRESPASSER.

She was about to speak again, but the guide sud-
denly said :

“You must get away. There’ll be a change of
wind and a bad cross-current soon.”

In a few minutes the two were bearing out — none
too soon, for those pumas crowded up once or twice
within a fathom of their deck, devilish and devouring.
But they wore away with a capricious current, and
down a tossing sea made for Audierne.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE MAH AND THE WOMAN FACE THE INTOLERABLE.

In a couple of hours they rounded Point de
Leroily, and ran for the harbour. By hugging the
quay in the channel to the left of the bar, they were
sure of getting in, though the tide was low. The
boat was docile to the lug-sail and the helm. As
they were beating in they saw a large yacht running
straight across a corner of the bar for the channel.
It was Warren Gasgoyne’s Kismet.

The Kismet had put into Audierne rather than
try to pass Point du Raz at night. At Gibraltar a
telegram had come telling of the open scandal, and
the yacht was instantly headed for England ; Mrs.
Gasgoyne crossing the Continent, Delia preferring to
go back with her father — his sympathy was more
tender. They had seen no newspapers, and they did
not know that Gaston was at Audierne. Gasgoyne
knowing, as all the world knew, that there was a bar
at the mouth of the harbour, allowed himself, as he
thought, sufficient room, but the wind had suddenly
drawn ahead, and he was obliged to keep away.

242

THE TRESPASSER.

Presently the yacht took the ground with great
force.

Gasgoyne put the helm hard down, but she would
not obey. He tried at once to get in his sails, but
the surf was running very strong, and presently a
heavy sea broke clean over her. Then came con-
fusion and dismay: the flapping of the wet, half-
lowered sails, and the whipping of the slack ropes,
making all effort useless. There was no chance of
her holding. Foot by foot she was being driven
towards the rocks. Sailors stood motionless on the
shore. The lifeboat would be of little use : besides,
it could not arrive for some time.

Gaston had recognised the Kismet. He turned to
Andree.

“ There’s danger, but perhaps we can do it. Will
you go?”

She flushed.

“Have I ever been a coward, Gaston. Tell me
what to do.”

“ Keep the helm firm, and act instantly on my
orders.”

Instead of coming round into the channel, he kept
straight on past the light-house towards the yacht,
until he was something to seaward of her. Then, -
luffing quickly, he dropped sail, let go the anchor, and
unshipped the mast, while Andree got the oars into
the rowlocks. It was his idea to dip under the yacht’s

MAN AND WOMAN FACE THE INTOLERABLE. 243

stern, but he found himself drifting alongside, and in
danger of dashing broadside on her. He got an oar
and backed with all his strength towards the stern,
the anchor holding well. Then he called to those on
board to be ready to jump. Once in line with the
Kismet's counter, he eased off the painter rapidly, and
now dropped towards the stern of the wreck.

Gaston was quite cool. He did not now think of
the dramatic nature of this meeting, apart from the
physical danger. Delia also had recognised himA and
guessed who the girl was. Hot to respond to Gaston’s
call was her first instinct. But then, life was sweet.
Besides, she had to think of others. Her father, too,
was chiefly concerned for her safety and for his yacht.
He had almost determined to get Delia on Gaston’s
boat, and himself take the chances with the Kismet ;
but his sailors dissuaded him, declaring that the
chances were against succour.

The only greetings were words of warning and
direction from Gaston. Presently there was an op-
portunity. Gaston called sharply to Delia, and she,
standing ready, jumped. He caught her in his arms
as she came. The boat swayed as the others leaped,
and he held her close meanwhile. Her eyes closed,
she shuddered and went white. When he put her
down, she covered her face with her hands, trembling.
Then, suddenly she came huddling in a heap, and
burst into tears.

THE TRESPASSER.

244

They slipped the painter, a sailor took Andree’s
place at the helm, the oars were got out, and they
made over to the channel, grazing the bar once or
twice, by reason of the now heavy load.

Warren Gasgoyne and Gaston had not yet spoken
in the way of greeting. The former went to Delia
now and said a few cheery words, but, from behind
her handkerchief, she begged him to leave her alone
for a moment

“ Nerves, all nerves, Mr. Belward ! ” he said, turn-
ing towards Gaston. “But, then, it was ticklish —
ticklish ! ”

They did not shake hands. Gaston was looking at
Delia, and he did not reply.

Mr. Gasgoyne continued :

“Nasty sea coming on — afraid to try Point du
Raz. Of course we didn’t know you were here.”

He looked at Andree curiously. He was struck
by the girl’s beauty and force. But how different
from Delia !

He suddenly turned, and said bluntly, in a low
voice :

“ Belward, what a fool— what a fool ! You had it
’ all at your feet : the best— the very best ! ”

Gaston answered quietly :

“It’s an awkward time for talking.— The rocks
will have your yacht in half an hour.”

Gasgoyne turned towards it.

MAN AND WOMAN FACE THE INTOLERABLE. 245

“ Yes, she’ll get a raking fore and aft.” Then, he
added, suddenly : “ Of course you know how we feel
about our rescue. It was plucky of you ! ”

“ Pluckier in the girl,” was the reply.

“ Brave enough ! ” the honest rejoinder.

Gaston had an impulse to say, “ Shall I thank her -
for you ? ” hut he was conscious how little right he had
to be ironical with Warren Gasgoyne, and he held his
peace.

While the two were now turned away towards the
Kismet , Andree came to Delia. She did not quite
know how to comfort her, hut she was a woman, and
perhaps a supporting arm would do something.

“ There, there, dear,” she said, passing a hand
round her shoulder, “you are all right now. Don’t
cry ! ”

With a gasp of horror, Delia got to her feet, but
swayed, and fell fainting — into Andree’s arms.

She awoke near the landing-place, her father be-
side her. Meanwhile Andree had read the riddle. As
Mr. Gasgoyne bathed Delia’s face, and Gaston her
wrists, and gave her brandy, she sat still and intent,
watching. Tears and fainting ! Would she — Andree
— have given way like that in the same circumstances?
No. But this girl — Delia — was of a different order :
was that it ? All nerves and sentiment ! At one of
those lunches in the grand world she had seen a lady
burst into tears suddenly at someone’s reference to

246

THE TRESPASSER.

Senegal. She herself had only cried four times, that
she remembered ; — when her mother died ; when her
father was called a thief ; when, one day, she suffered
the first great shame of her life in the mountains of
Auvergne ; and the night when she waked a second
time to her love for Gaston. — She dared to call it love,
though good Annette had called it a mortal sin.

What was to be done? The other woman must
suffer. The man was hers — hers for ever ! He had
said it : for ever. Yet her heart had a wild hunger
for that something which this girl had and she had
not. But the man was hers ! She had won him awray
from this other.

Delia came upon the quay bravely, passing through
the crowd of staring fishermen, who presently gave
Gaston a guttural cheer. Three of them, indeed, had
been drinking his health. They embraced him and
kissed him, begging him to come with them for ab-
sinthe. He arranged the matter wdth a couple of
francs.

Then he wondered what now was to be done. He
could not insult the Gasgoynes by asking them to
come to the chateau. He proposed the Hotel de
France to Mr. Gasgoyne, who assented. It was difficult
to separate here on the quay : they must all walk to-
gether to the hotel. Gaston turned to speak to An-
dree, but she was gone. She had saved the situa-
tion.

MAN AND WOMAN FACE THE INTOLERABLE. 247

The three spoke little, and then but formally, as
they walked to the hotel. Mr. Gasgoyne said that they
would leave by train for Paris the next day, going to
Douarnenez that evening. They had saved nothing
from the yacht.

Delia did not speak. She was pale, composed now.
In the hotel Mr. Gasgoyne arranged for rooms, while
Gaston got some sailors together, and, in Mr. Gas-
goyne’s name, offered a price for the recovery of the
yacht or of certain things in her. Then he went into
the hotel to see if he could do anything further. The
door of the sitting-room was open, and no answer com-
ing to his knock, he entered.

Delia was standing in the window. Against her
will her father had gone to find a doctor. Gaston
would have drawn back if she had not turned round
wearily to him.

Perhaps it were well to get it over now ! He came
forward. She made no motion.

“ I hope you feel better ? ” he said. “ It was a bad
accident.”

“ I am tired and shaken, of course,” she responded.
“ It was very brave of you.”

He hesitated, then said :

“ We were more fortunate than brave.”

He was determined to have Andree included. She
deserved that ; the wrong to Delia was not hers.

But she answered after the manner of a woman :

248

THE TRESPASSER.

“ The girl — ah, yes, please thank her for us. What
is her name ? ”

“ She is known in Audierne — as Madame Bel-
ward.”

The girl started. Her face had a cold, scornful
pride.

“ The Bretons, then, have a taste for fiction ? ”

“ No, they speak as they are taught.”

“ They understand, then, as little as I.”

How proud, how inefiaceably superior she was !

“ Be ignorant for ever,” he answered quietly.

“ I do not need the counsel, believe me.”

Her hand trembled, though it rested against the
window — trembled with indignation : the insult of
his elopement kept beating up her throat in spite of
her.

At that moment a servant knocked, entered, and
said that a parcel had been brought for mademoiselle.
It was laid upon the table. Delia, wondering, ordered
it to be opened. A bundle of clothes was disclosed —
Andree’s ! Gaston recognised them, and caught his
breath with wonder and confusion.

“ Who has sent them? ” Delia said to the servant.

“ They come from the Chateau Ronan, mademoi-
selle.”

Delia dismissed the servant.

“ The Chateau Ronan ? ” she asked of Gaston.

“ Where I am living.”

MAN AND WOMAN FACE THE INTOLERABLE. 249

“It is not necessary to speak of this?” She
flushed.

“ Not at all. I will have them sent back. There
is a little shop near by where you can get what you
may need.”

Andree had acted according to her lights. It was
not an olive-branch, but a touch of primitive hospital-
ity. She was Delia’s enemy at sight, but a woman
must have linen.

Mr. Gasgoyne entered. Gaston prepared to go.

“ Is there anything more that I can do ? ” he said,
as it were, to both.

The girl replied. “ Nothing at all, thank you.”

They did not shake hands.

Mr. Gasgoyne could not think that all had neces-
sarily ended. The thing might be patched up one
day yet. This affair with the dompteuse was mad sail-
ing, but the man might round-to suddenly and be no
worse for the escapade.

“We are going early in the morning,” he said.
“We can get along all right. Good-bye ! When do
you come to England ? ”

The reply was prompt. “ In a few weeks.”

He looked at both. The girl, seeing that he was
going to speak further, bowed and left the room.

His eyes followed her. After a moment, he said
firmly :

“ Mr. Gasgoyne, I am going to face all.”

250

THE TRESPASSER.

“ To live it down, Bel ward ? ”

“ I am going to fight it down ! ”

“Well, there’s a difference. Yon have made a
mess of things, and shocked us all. I needn’t say
what more. It’s done, and now you know what such
things mean to a good woman — and, I hope also, to
the father of a good woman.”

The man’s voice broke a little. He added :

“ They used to come to swords or pistols on such
points. We can’t settle it in that way. Anyhow, you
have handicapped us to-day.” Then, with a burst
of reproach, indignation, and trouble: “Great God!
as if you hadn’t been the luckiest man on earth !
Delia, the estate, the Commons — all for a domp-
teuse ! ”

“ Let us say nothing more,” said Gaston, choking
down wrath at the reference to Andree, but sorrowful,
and pitying Mr. Gasgoyne. Besides, the man had a
right to rail.

Soon after they parted courteously.

Gaston went to the chateau. As he came up the
stone steps he met a procession — it was the feast-day
of the Virgin— of priests and people and little chil-
dren, filing up from the village and the sea, singing
as they came. He drew up to the wall, stood upon
the stone seat, and took off his hat while the proces-
sion passed. He had met the cure, first accidentally on
the shore, and afterwards in the cure’s house, finding

MAN AND WOMAN FACE THE INTOLERABLE. 251

much in common — he had known many priests in the
North, known much good of them. The cure glanced
up at him now as they passed, and a half-sad smile
crossed his face. Gaston caught it as it passed. The
cure read his case truly enough and gently enough
too. In some wise hour he would plead with Gaston
for the woman’s soul and his own.

Gaston did not find Andree at the ch&teau. She
had gone out alone towards the sea, Annette said, by
a route at the rear of the village. He went also, but
did not find her. As he came again to the quay he
saw the Kismet beating upon the rocks — the sailors
had given up any idea of saving her. He stood and
watched the sea breaking over her, and the whole
scene flashed back on him. He thought how easily
he could be sentimental over the thing. But that
was not his nature. He had made his bed, but he
would not lie in it — he would carry it on his back.
They all said that he had gone on the rocks. He
laughed.

“ I can turn that tide : I can make things come
my way,” he said. “ All they want is sensation, it isn’t
morals that concerns them. Well, I’ll give them sen-
sation ! They expect me to hide, and drop out of the
game. Never — so help me, God! I’ll play it so
they’ll forget this — they’ll have to ! ”

He rolled and lighted a cigarette, and went again
to the ch&teau. Dinner was ready — had been ready

252

THE TRESPASSER.

for some time. He sat down, and presently Andree
came. There was a look in her face that he could not
understand. They ate their dinner quietly, not men-
tioning the events of the afternoon.

Presently a telegram was brought to him. It read :
“ Come. My office, Downing Street, Friday. Expect
you.” It was signed “ Faramond.” At the same time
came letters: from his grandfather, from Captain
Maudsley. The first was stern, imperious, reproach-
ful.— Shame for those that took him in and made him,
a ruined reputation, a spoiled tradition : he had been
but a heathen after all ! There was only left to bid
him farewell, and to enclose a cheque for two thou-
sand pounds.

Captain Maudsley called him a fool, and asked
him what he meant to do — hoped he would give up
the woman at once, and come back. He owed some-
thing to his position as Master of the Hounds — a
tradition that oughtn’t to be messed about.

There it all was : not a word about radical morality
or immorality ; but the tradition of Family, the Com-
mons, Master of the Hounds !

But there was another letter. He did not recog-
nise the handwriting, and the envelope had a black
edge. He turned it over and over, forgetting that
Andree was watching him. Looking up, he caught
her eyes, with their strange, sad look. She guessed
what was in these letters. She knew English well

MAN AND WOMAN FACE THE INTOLERABLE. 253

enough to understand them. He interpreted her
look, and pushed them over.

“ You may read them, if you wish; but I wouldn’t,
if I were you.”

She read the telegram first, and asked who “ Fara-
mond ” was. Then she read Sir William Belward’s i
letter, and afterwards Captain Maudsley’s.

“ It has all come at once,” she said : “ the girl and
these ! What will you do ? Give ‘ the woman ’ up for
the honour — of the Master of the Hounds ? ”

The tone was bitter, exasperating.

Gaston was patient.

“ What do you think, Andree ? ”

“ Oh ! it has only begun,” she said. “ Wait, King
of Ys. Read that other letter.”

Her eyes were fascinated by the black border. He
opened it with a strange slowness. It began without
any form of address, it had the superscription of a
street in Manchester Square :

“ If you were not in deep trouble I would not write. But
because 1 know that more hard things than kind will be said by
others, I want to say what is in my heart, which is quick to feel
for you. I know that you have sinned, but I pray for you every
day, and I cannot believe that God will not answer. Oh ! think
of the wrong that you have done: of the wrong to the girl, to
her soul’s good. Think of that, and right the wrong in so far
as you can. Oh, Gaston, my brother ! — I need not explain why
1 write thus. My grandfather, before he died, three weeks ago,
told me that you know ! — and I also have known ever since the
day you saved the boy. Oh ! think of one who would give years
of her life to see you good and noble and happy. . . .”

254:

THE TRESPASSER.

Then followed a deep, sincere appeal to his man-
hood, and afterwards a wish that their real relations
should be made known to the world if he needed her,
or if disaster came ; that she might share and comfort
his life, whatever it might be. Then again :

“ If you love her, and she loves you, and is sorry for what
she has done, marry her and save her from everlasting shame.
I am staying with my grandfather’s cousin, the Dean of Digh-
bury, the father of the boy you saved. He is very kind, and he
knows all. May God guide you aright, and may you believe
that no one speaks more truthfully to you than your sorrowful
and affectionate sister, Alice Wingfield.”

He put the letter down beside him, made a ciga-
rette, and poured out some coffee for them both. He
was holding himself with a tight hand. This letter
had touched him as nothing in his life had done since
his father’s death. It had nothing of noblesse oblige ,
but straight statement of wrong, as she saw it. And
a sister — an illegitimate sister : the mere fidelity of
blood ! His father had brought this sorrowful life
into the world and he had made it more sorrowful —
poor little thing — poor girl !

“ What are you going to do ? ” said Andree. “Do
you go back — with Delia?”

He winced. Yet why should he expect of her too
great refinement ? She had not had a chance, she had
not the stuff for it in her veins ; she had never been
taught. But behind it all was her passion — her love —
for him.

MAN AND WOMAN FACE THE INTOLERABLE. 255

“ Not with her : you know that’s impossible ! ” he
answered.

“ She would not take you back.”

“ Probably not. She has pride.”

“ Pride— --chut ! She’d jump at the chance ! ”

“That sounds a little vulgar, Andree; and it is
contradictory.”

“Vulgar! Well, I’m a gipsy and a domp-
teuse ! ”

“ Is that all, my girl ? ”

“ That’s all, now.” Then, with a sudden change
and a quick sob : “ But I may be — Oh, I can’t say
it, Gaston ! ” She hid her face for a moment on his
shoulder.

“My God!”

He got to his feet. He had not thought of that —
of another besides themselves. He had drifted. A
hundred ideas ran back and forth. He went to the
window and stood looking out. Alice’s letter was stijl
in his fingers.

She came and touched his shoulder.

“ Are you going to leave me, Gaston ? What does
that letter say ? ”

He looked at her kindly, with a protective tender-
ness.

“ Read the letter, Andree,” he said.

She did so, at first slowly, then quickly, then over
and over again. He stood motionless in the window.

256

THE TRESPASSER.

She pushed the letter between his fingers. He did
not turn.

“I cannot understand everything, but what she
says she means. Oh, Gaston, what a fool, what a fool
you’ve been t ”

After a moment, however, she threw her arms about
him with animal-like fierceness.

“ But I can’t give you up — I can’t ! ” Then, with
another of those sudden changes, she added, with a
wild little laugh : “ I can’t, I can’t, 0 Master of the
Hounds ! ”

There was a knock at the door. Annette entered
with a letter. The postman had not delivered it on
his rounds, because the address was not correct. It
was for madame. Andre e took it, started at the hand-
writing, tore open the envelope, and read :

“Zoug-Zoug congratulates you on the conquest of his
nephew. Zoug-Zoug’s name is not George Maur, as you knew
him. Allah’s blessing, with Zoug-Zoug’s !

“What fame you’ve got now — dompteuse, and the sweet
scandal ! ”

The journalist had found out Zoug-Zoug at last,
and Ian Bel ward had talked with the manager of the
menagerie.

Andree shuddered and put the letter in her pocket.
How she understood why she had shrunk from Gaston
that first night and those first days in Audierne : that
strange sixth sense, divination — vague, helpless pre-

MAN AND WOMAN FACE THE INTOLERABLE. 257

science. And here, suddenly, she shrank again, but
with a different thought. She hurriedly left the room
and went to her chamber.

In a few moments he came to her. She was sitting
upright in a chair, looking straight before her. Her
lips were bloodless, her eyes were burning. He came
and took her hands.

“What is it, Andree?” he said. “That letter,
dear ! ”

She looked at him steadily.

“ You’ll he sorry if you read it.”

But she gave it to him. He lighted a candle, put
it on a little table, sat down, and read. The shock
went deep ; so deep that it made no violent sign on
the surface. He spread the letter out before him.
The candle showed his face gone grey and knotted
with misery. He could bear all the rest : fight, do all
that was right to the coming mother of his child ; but
this made him sick and dizzy. He felt as he did
when he waked up in Labrador, with his wife’s dead
lips pressed to his neck. It was strange too that
Andree was as quiet as he : no storm — misery had
gone deep with her also.

“ Ho you care to tell me about it? ” he said.

She sat back in her chair, her hands over her eyes.
Presently, still sitting so, she spoke.

Ian Belward had painted them and their van in
the hills of Auvergne, and had persuaded her to sit

258

THE TRESPASSER.

for a picture. He had treated her courteously at first.
Her father was taken ill suddenly, and died. She
was alone for a few days afterwards. Ian Belward
came to her. Of that time, from which the artist
would carry to his grave a scar on the neck, made by
a weapon in her frenzied hands, Gaston heard with a
hard sort of coldness. The promised marriage was a
matter for the man’s mirth a week later. They came
across three young artists from Paris — Bagshot, Fan-
court, and another — who camped one night beside
them. It was then she fully realised the deep shame
of her position. The next night she ran away and
joined a travelling menagerie. The rest he knew.
When she had ended there was silence for a time,
broken only by one quick gasping sob from Gaston.
The girl sat still as death, her eyes on him in-
tently.

“ Poor Andr6e ! Poor girl ! ” he said at last.

She sighed — how pitifully !

“ What shall we do ? ” she asked.

He scarcely spoke above a whisper :

“ There must be time to think. I will go to
London.”

“ You will come back?”

“ Yes — in five days, if I live.”

“I believe you,” she said quietly. “You never
lied to me. When you return we will know what to
do.” Her manner was strangely quiet. “A little

MAN AND WOMAN FACE THE INTOLERABLE. 259

trading schooner goes from Douarnenez to England
to-morrow morning,” she went on. “ There is a no-
tice of it in the market-place. That would save the
journey to Paris.”

“ Yes, that will do very well. I will start for
Douarnenez at once.”

“ Will Jacques go too? ”

“ No.”

An hour later he passed Delia and her father on
the road to Douarnenez. He did not recognise them,
but Delia, seeing him, shrank away in a corner of the
carriage, trembling.

Jacques had wished to go to London with Gaston,
but had been denied. He was to care for the horses.
When he saw his master ride down over the place,
waving a hand back towards him, he came in and
said to Andree :

“ Madame, there is trouble — I do not know what.
But I once said I would never leave him, wherever he
go or whatever he did. Well, I never will leave him
— or you, madame — no ! ”

“ That is right, that is right,” she said earnestly ;
“you must never leave him, Jacques. He is a good
man ! ”

When Jacques had gone she shut herself up in her
room. She was gathering all her life into the com-
pass of an hour. She felt but one thing : the ruin of
her happiness and Gaston’s.

200 THE TRESPASSER.

“ He is a good man,” she said over and over to
herself. And the other, who ruined her? — All the
barbarian in her was alive !

The next morning she started for Paris, saying to
Jacques and Annette that she would return in four
days.

CHAPTER XVIII.

“ RETURN-, 0 SHULAMITE ! ”

Almost the first person that Gaston recognised in
London was Cluny Vosse. He had been to Victoria
Station to see a friend off by the train, and as he was
leaving, Gaston and he recognised each other. The
lad’s greeting was a little shy nntil he saw that Gaston
was cool and composed as usual — in effect, nothing
had happened ! Cluny was delighted, and opened his
mind :

“ They’d kicked up a deuce of a row in the papers,
and there ’d been no end of talk ; but he didn’t see
what all the babble was about, and he’d said so again
and again to Lady Hargan.”

“ And Lady Hargan, Cluny ? ” asked Gaston
quietly.

Cluny could not be dishonest, though he would
try hard not to say painful things.

“ Well, she was a bit fierce at first — she’s a woman,
you know ; but afterwards she went like a baby ; cried,
and wouldn’t stay at Cannes any longer : so we’re back

262

THE TRESPASSER.

in town. We’re going down to the country, though,
to-morrow or next day.”

“ Do you think I had better call, Cluny ? ” Gaston
ventured suggestively.

“ Yes, yes, of course,” Cluny replied, with great
eagerness, as if to justify the matter to himself.

Gaston smiled, said that he might — he was only
in town for a few days, — and dropped Cluny in Pall
Mall.

Cluny came running back.

“ I say, Bel ward, things’ll come around just as
they were before, won’t they ? You’re going to cut
in, and not let ’em walk on you ? ”

“ Yes, I’m ‘ going to cut in,’ Cluny boy.”

Cluny brightened.

“And of course it isn’t all over with Delia, is it?”
He blushed.

Gaston reached out and dropped a hand on Cluny’s
shoulder.

“ I’m afraid it is all over, Cluny.”

Cluny spoke without thinking.

“ I say, it’s rough on her, isn’t it ? ”

Then he was confused, hurriedly offered Gaston a
cigarette, a hasty good-bye was said, and they parted.

Gaston went first to Lord Faramond. He encount-
ered inquisition, cynical humour, flashes of sympathy,
with a general flavour of reproach. The tradition of
the Commons ! Ah, one way only : he must come back

RETURN, 0 SHULAM1TE !

263

alone — alone — and live it down. Fortunately, it wasn’t
an intrigue — no matter of divorce — a dompteuse, he
believed. It must end, of course, and he would see
what could he done. Such a chance — such a chance
as he had had ! Make it up with his grandfather, and
reverse the record — reverse the record : that was the
only way. This meeting must, of course, be strictly
between themselves. But he was really interested for
him, for his people, and for the tradition of the Com-
mons.

“I am Master of the Hounds too,” said Gaston
dryly.

Lord Faramond caught the meaning, and smiled
grimly.

Then came Gaston’s decision — he would come back
— not to live the thing down, but to hold his place as
long as he could : to fight.

Lord Faramond shrugged a shoulder.

“ Without the woman ? ”

“ I cannot say that.”

“ With the woman, I can promise nothing — noth-
ing. You cannot fight it with her. Ho one man is
stronger than massed opinion. It is merely a matter
of pressure. Ho, no ; I can promise nothing in that
case.”

The Premier’s face had gone cold and disdainful.
Why should a clever man like Belward be so infatu-
ated ? He rose, Gaston thanked him for the meeting,

264

THE TRESPASSER.

and was about to go, when the Prime Minister, tapping
his shoulder kindly, said :

“ Mr. Belward, you are not playing to the rules of
the game.” He waved his hand towards the Chamber
of the House. “ It is the greatest game in the world :
the woman must go ! Do not reply. You will come
back without her — good-bye ! ”

Then came Ridley Court. He entered on Sir Wil-
liam and Lady Belward without announcement. Sir
William came to his feet, austere and pale. Lady Bel-
ward’s fingers trembled on the lace she held. They
looked many years older. Neither spoke his name, nor
did they offer their hands. Gaston did not wince, he
had expected it. He owed these old people something.
They lived according to their lights, they had acted
righteously as by their code, they had used him well —
well always.

“ Will you hear the whole story?” he said.

He felt that it would be best to tell them all.

“ Can it do any good ? ” asked Sir William.

He looked towards his wife.

“ Perhaps it is better to hear it,” she murmured.
She was clinging to a vague hope.

Gaston told the story plainly, briefly, as he had told
his earlier history. Its concision and simplicity were
poignant. Prom the day he first saw Andree in the
justice’s room till the hour when she opened Ian Bel-
ward’s letter, his tale went. Then he paused.

RETURN, O SUULAMITE!

265

“I remember very well,” Sir William said, with
painful meditation : “ a strange girl, with a remarkable
face. You pleaded for her father then. Ah, yes, an
unhappy case ! ”

“ There is more ? ” asked Lady Belward, leaning on
her cane. She seemed very frail.

Then with a terrible brevity Gaston told them of
his uncle, of the letter to Andree : all. He had no
idea of sparing Ian Belward now. A groan escaped
Lady Belward.

“ And now — now, what will you do ? ” asked the
baronet.

“ I do not know. I am going back first to the
girl”

Sir William’s face was ashy.

“ Impossible ! ”

“ I promised, and I will go back.”

Lady Bel ward’s voice quivered :

“ Stay, oh, stay, and redeem the past. You can,
oh, you can outlive it.”

Always the same : live it down !

“ It is no use,” he answered ; “ I must return.”

Then in a few words he thanked them for all, and
bade them good-bye. He did not offer his hand, nor
did they. But at the door he heard Lady Belward say
in a pleading voice —

“ Gaston ! ”

He returned. She held out her hand.

266

THE TRESPASSER.

“ You must not do as your father did,” she said.
“ Give the woman up, and come back to us. Oh ! am
I nothing to you — nothing ? ”

“ Is there no other way ? ” he asked, gravely, sor-
rowfully.

She did not reply. He turned to his grand-
father.

“ There is no other way,” said the old man, sternly.
Then in a voice almost shrill with pain and indigna-
tion, he cried out as he had never done in his life :
“ Nothing, nothing, nothing but disgrace ! My God
in heaven ! a lion- tamer — a gipsy ! An honourable
name dragged through the mire ! Go back,” he said
grandly ; “ go back to the woman, and she to her lions
— savages, savages, savages ! ”

“Savages after the manner of our forefathers,”
Gaston answered quietly. “ The first Gaston showed
us the way. — His was a strolling player’s daughter.
Good-bye, sir.”

Lady Bel ward’s face was in her hands.

“Good-bye — grandmother,” he said at the door,
and then he was gone.

At the outer door the old housekeeper stepped
forward, her gloomy face most agitated.

“ Oh, sir ! oh, sir ! you will come back again ? Oh,
don’t go like your father ! ”

He suddenly threw an arm about her shoulder,
and kissed her on the cheek.

RETURN, 0 SHULAMITE!

267

“ I’ll come back — yes, I’ll come back here — if I
can. Good-bye, Hovey.”

In the library Sir William and Lady Bel ward sat
silent for a time. Presently Sir William rose, and
walked up and down. He paused at last, and said, in
a strange, hesitating voice, his hands chafing each
other :

“ I forgot myself, my dear. I fear I was violent.
I would like to ask his pardon. Ah, yes, yes.”

Then he sat down and took her hand, and held it
long in the silence.

“ It all feels so empty — so empty ! ” she said at
last, as the tower-clock struck hollow on the air.

The old man could not reply, but he drew her
close to him, and Hovey, from the door, saw his tears
dropping on her white hair.

Gaston went to Manchester Square. He half
dreaded a meeting with Alice, and yet he wished it.
He did not find her. She had gone to Paris with her
uncle, the servant said. He got their address. There
was little left to do but to avoid reporters, two of
whom almost forced themselves in upon him. He
was to go back to Douarnenez by the little boat that
brought him, and at seven o’clock in the morning he
watched the mists of England recede.

He chanced to put his hand into a light overcoat
which he had got at his chambers before he started.
He drew out a paper, the one discovered in the so-

268

THE TRESPASSER.

licitor’s office in London. It was an ancient deed of
entail of the property, drawn by Sir Gaston Bel ward,
which, through being lost, was never put into force.
He was not sure that it had value. If it had, all
chance of the estate was gone for him ; it would be
his uncle’s. Well, what did it matter? Yes, it did
matter : Andree ! For her ? No, not for her ! He
would play straight. He would take his future as it
came : he would not drop this paper into the water.

He smiled bitterly, got an envelope at a public-
house on the quay, wrote a few words in pencil on the
document, and in a few moments it was on its way to
Sir William Bel ward, who when he received it said :

“ Worthless, quite worthless ! But he has an hon-
est mind — an honest mind ! ”

Meanwhile, Andree was in Paris. Leaving her
bag at the Gare Montparnasse, she had gone straight
to Ian Belward’s house. She had lived years in the
last few hours. She had had no sleep on the journey,
and her mind had been strained unbearably. It had,
however, a fixed idea, which shuttled in and out in a
hundred shapes, but ever pointing to one end. She
had determined on a painful thing — the only way.

She reached the house, and was admitted. In an-
swer to questions, she had an appointment with mon-
sieur. He was not within. Well, she would wait.
She was motioned into the studio. She was outward-

RETURN, 0 SHULAMITE!

269

ly calm. The servant presently recognised her. He
had been to the menagerie, and he had seen her with
Gaston. His manner changed instantly. Could he
do anything? Ho, nothing. She was left alone. For
a long time she sat motionless, then a sudden restless-
ness seized her. Her brain seemed a burning atmos- i
phere, in which every thought, every thing showed
with an unbearable intensity. The terrible clearness
of it all — how it made her eyes, her heart ache ! Her
blood was beating hard against every pore. She felt
that she would go mad if he did not come. Once she
took out the stiletto she had concealed in the bosom
of her cloak, and looked at it. She had always car-
ried it when among the beasts at the menagerie, but
had never yet used it. It was virgin to her purpose.

Time passed. She felt ill ; she became blind with
pain. Presently the servant entered with a tele-
gram. His master would not be back until the next
morning.

Very well, she would return in the morning. She
gave him money. He was not to say that she had
called. In the Boulevard Montparnasse she took a
cab. To the menagerie, she said to the driver. How
strange it all looked : the Invalides, Notre Dame, the
Tuileries Gardens, the Place de la Concorde ! The
innumerable lights were so near and yet so far : it was
a kink of the brain, but she seemed withdrawn from
them, not they from her. A woman passed with a

270

THE TRESPASSER.

baby in her arms. What a pretty, sweet face it had !
— the light from a kiosk fell on it as she passed. Why
did it not have a pretty, delicate Breton cap ? As she
went on, that kept beating in her brain — why did not
the child wear a dainty Breton cap — a white Breton
cap ? The face kept peeping from behind the lights
— without the dainty Breton cap !

The menagerie at last. She dismissed the cab,
went to a little door at the back of the building, and
knocked. She was admitted. The care-taker ex-
claimed with pleasure. She wished to visit the ani-
mals ? He would go with her ; and he picked up a
light. No, she would go alone. How were Hector
and Balzac, and Antoinette? She took the keys.
How cool and pleasant they were to the touch ! The
steel of the lantern too — how exquisitely soothing !
He must lie down again : she would wake him as she
came out. No, no, she would go alone.

She went to cage after cage. At last to that of
the largest lions. There was a deep answering purr
to her soft call. As she entered, she saw a heap mov-
ing in one corner — a lion lately bought. She spoke,
and there was an angry growl. She wheeled to leave
the cage, but her cloak caught the door, and it snapped
shut.

Too late. A blow brought her to the ground.

She had made no cry, and now she lay so still !

The watchman had fallen asleep again. In the

‘‘RETURN, O SHULAMITE!

271

early morning lie remembered. The greyish golden
dawn was creeping in, when he found her with two
lions protecting, keeping guard over her, while an-
other crouched snarling in a corner. There was no
mark on her face. The point of the stiletto which
she had carried in her cloak had pierced her when she
fell.

In a hotel near the Arc de Triomphe Alice Wing-
field read the news. It was she who tenderly pre-
pared the body for burial, who telegraphed to Gaston
at Audierne, getting a reply from J acques that he was
not yet back from London. The next day Andree
was found a quiet place in the cemetery at Mont-
martre.

In the evening Alice and her relative started for
Audierne.

On board the Fleur cT Orange Gaston struggled
with the problem. There was one thought ever com-
ing. He shut it out at this point, and it crept in at
that. He remembered when two men, old friends,
discovered that one, unknowingly, had been living
with the wife of the other. There was one too many
— the situation was impossible. The men played a
game of cards to see which should die. But they did
not reckon with the other factor. It was the woman
who died.

Was not his own situation far worse? With his

272

THE TRESPASSER.

uncle living — but no, no, it was out of the question !
Yet Ian Belward had been shameless, a sensualist, who
had wrecked the girl’s happiness and his. He himself
had done a mad thing in the eyes of the world, but it
was more mad than wicked. Had this happened in
the North with another man, how easy would the
problem have been solved !

Go to his uncle and tell him that he must remove
himself for ever from the situation? Demand it,
force it ? Impossible — this was Europe.

They arrived at Douranenez. The diligence had
gone. A fishing-boat was starting for Audierne. He
decided to go by it. Breton fishermen are usually shy
of storm to foolishness, and one or two of the crew
urged the drunken skipper not to start, for there were
signs of a south-west wind, too friendly to the Bay
des Trepasses. The skipper was, however, cheerfully
reckless, and growled down objection.

The boat came on with a sweet wind off: the land
for a time. Suddenly, when in the neighbourhood of
Point du Raz, the wind drew ahead very squally, with
rain in gusts out of the south-west. The skipper put
the boat on the starboard tack, close-hauled and close-
reefed the sails, keeping as near the wind as possible,
with the hope of weathering the rocky point at the
western extremity of the Bay des Trepasses. By that
time there was a heavy sea running ; night came on,
and the weather grew very thick. They heard the

RETURN, 0 SHULAMITE!

273

breakers presently, but they could not make out the
Point. Old sailor as he was, and knowing as well as
any man the perilous ground, the skipper lost his
drunken head this time, and presently lost his way
also in the dark and murk of the storm.

At eight o’clock she struck. She was thrown on
her side, a heavy sea broke over her, and they were all
washed off. No one raised a cry. They were busy
fighting Death.

Gaston was a strong swimmer. It did not occur
to him that perhaps this was the easiest way out of
the maze. He had ever been a fighter. The seas
tossed him here and there. He saw faces about him
for an instant — shaggy wild Breton faces, — but they
dropped away, he knew not where. The current kept
driving him inshore. As in a dream, he could hear
the breakers — the pumas on their treadmill of death.
How long would it last? How long before he would
be beaten upon that treadmill— fondled to death by
those mad paws? Presently dreams came— kind,
vague, distant dreams. His brain flew like a drunk-
en dove to far points of the world and back again.
A moment it rested. Andree ! He had made no
provision for her, none at all. He must live, he must
fight on for her, the homeless girl, his wife !

He fought on and on. No longer in the water, as
it seemed to him. He had travelled very far. He
heard the clash of sabres, the distant roar of cannon,

274

THE TRESPASSER.

the beating of horses’ hoofs — the thud-thud, tread-
tread of an army. How reckless and wild it was!
He stretched up his arm to strike — what was it?
Something hard that bruised: then his whole body
was dashed against the thing. He was back again,
awake. With a last effort he drew himself up on a
huge rock that stands lonely in the wash of the bay.
Then he cried out, “ Andree ! ” and fell senseless —
safe.

The storm went down. The cold, fast- travelling
moon came out, saw the one living thing in that wild
bay, and hurried on into the dark again ; but came
and went so till morning, playing hide-and-seek with
the man and his Ararat.

Daylight saw him, wet, haggard, broken, looking
out over the waste of shaken water. Upon the shore
glared the stone of the vanished City of Ys in the
warm sun, and the fierce pumas trod their grumbling
way. Sea-gulls flew about the quiet set figure, in
whose brooding eyes there were at once despair and
salvation.

He was standing between two worlds. He had had
his great crisis, and his wounded soul rested for a
moment ere he ventured out upon the highways again.
He knew not how it was, but there had passed into
him the dignity of sorrow and the joy of deliverance at
the same time. He saw life’s responsibilities clearer,
duties swam grandly before him. It was a large

RETURN, 0 SHULAMITE!

275

dream, in which, for the time, he was not conscious of
those troubles which, yesterday, had clenched his hands
and knotted his forehead. He had come a step higher
in the way of life, and into his spirit had flowed a new
and sobered power. His heart was sore, but his mind
was lifted up. The fatal wrangle of the pumas there
below, the sound of it, would be in his ears for ever,
but he had come above it ; the searching vigour of the
sun entered into his bones.

He knew that he was going back to England — to
ample work and strong days, but he did not know that
he was going — alone. He did not know that Andree
— was gone ! that she had found her true place : in
his undying memory.

So intent was he, that he did not see a boat r ..aking
into the bay towards him.

THE END.

r

THE

TRESPASSER

GILBERT PARKER

AUTHOR OF

THE TRANSLATION OF A SAVAGE, PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE
MRS. FALCHION, THE CHIEF FACTOR, ETC.

NEW YORK

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

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